


Passion Connected

by songlin



Series: The Passion Connected Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Skating, Alternate Universe - Sports, Comeback Story, Drug Use, Ice Skating, M/M, Oblivious John Watson, Past Drug Use, Past Sex Work, Pining, Pining Sherlock Holmes, Slow Burn, figure skating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-04-22 01:47:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14298093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songlin/pseuds/songlin
Summary: John Watson retired after an injury pulled him out of the 2010 Winter Olympics. He's resigned himself to living out his days sharpening skates in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, fighting with his drunk sister and watching his number of students dwindle away.Sherlock Holmes was banned from competition for a doping violation he did not commit before the 2014 Winter Olympics. Ever since, he has whiled away his time on odd jobs as skater after skater fires him as a coach. He no longer dreams of proving his innocence and making his comeback.As the story must go, their paths converge.





	1. The Dust We've Become

**Author's Note:**

> Some liberties have been taken here, although elements of realism have been attempted. Constructive criticism is welcome, especially if you are more knowledgeable about skating than I. (I have been soaking up all the skating knowledge I can get my mitts on for, essentially, a single year.)
> 
> FYI: The footnotes don't link right if you're viewing full the work. You've gotta view chapter by chapter. I think I know how to fix this, but it would be VERY time-consuming, so, uh, give me a while.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John falls asleep to the distant drone of the television, as he did the night before, and the night before, and the night before.
> 
> Sherlock opens his eyes and sees the empty room, absent of judges, of coaches, of anyone, and remembers: this is not for him. This is not his anymore.

It’s not a long drive from the rink to John’s house.

This is no accident. When John started seriously taking lessons, Nancy, John, and Harriet Watson had moved from their house in neighboring Montour County, Pennsylvania, to a small home on the outskirts of Catawissa. The 45 minute drive was too long for Mrs. Watson to make twice a day, six times a week. Even after John moved to California for the opportunities and Harry went off to college, Mrs. Watson had stayed. By then, buried under mortgage payments and coaching fees, she found moving beyond her means. One day, John had promised, his mother would have the beautiful home she dreamed of, with a sewing room, two-car garage, and granite countertops.

John is no longer in California, Harry is no longer in college, and Nancy is five years gone. The gray ranch house on Quaker Road is still the Watson house.

John pulls his old Honda into the driveway. The lights are on in the living room and kitchen. The light of the television flickers blue, black, yellow, green. John grabs his bag and heads inside. The cigarette smoke and the drone of the television suck him under.

“Where were you?” Harry calls from the easy chair. It’s kicked back, and there’s a glass on the TV table next to her. John knows without looking that there’s a bottle within reach of Harry’s other arm. She doesn’t put it right next to the glass, because she has to be able to tell herself she’s going to try to exercise restraint. But it’s there nonetheless, and she always, always reaches for it.

“Stayed late to get a jump on tomorrow’s work,” John says.

Harry snorts.

Anger flares hot in John’s chest. It’s the old fight. He could have it by himself.  _ “You wouldn’t know work if it bit you in the ass. You wouldn’t know sacrifice. We gave you everything we had and you left us and threw it away.” _ Everyone screams until they’re hoarse, heavy and breakable objects fly, and someone slams the door and storms out. Maybe a neighbor calls the cops and John has to talk them down, or Harry spends a night in the drunk tank.

John thinks about rising to it. He thinks about how good it would feel to break that bottle over Harry’s fool head and shout for a while, after the eternal tedium of his day at the rink.

Instead, he toes off his shoes and leaves them by the door. “Good night, Harry,” he says, and goes down the hall to his bedroom.

The room is sparse. A desk by the door holding an old laptop, printer, and stack of textbooks, a set of hand weights and a disorganized bin of miscellaneous exercise equipment, a twin bed under the window, and a slightly cluttered end table at the head of the bed represent all the major furniture in the room. On the wall above the desk is a shelf holding a number of dusty trophies. From a pole mounted above the bed hangs a waterfall of multicolored ribbons, with bronze, silver, and gold medals dangling down. A few more are pinned onto a board nearby.

John drops his skate bag next to his desk and gets dressed for bed. As he climbs under the covers, he checks his texts. One from Mikayla, who currently represents John’s entire stable of coaching students, asking if she can move her lesson tomorrow up half an hour. One from Larry, his boss, asking if he can work the skate shop on Friday.

One from James.

John answers yes to the first, yes to the second, and ignores the third.

He falls asleep to the distant drone of the television, as he did the night before, and the night before, and the night before.

———

Sherlock Holmes leans forward against the wall around the ice rink, grimaces, squeezes his eyes shut, and takes a long, deep breath.

Anderson slides to a neat stop in front of him, hands on his hips.

“What?” Anderson says, sounding outraged. “What did I forget this time?”

“It’s not so much what you forgot,” says Sherlock. “It would take me less time to list what you remembered.”

From a dozen feet away, Greg Lestrade calls out a precautionary, “Sherlock.” Sherlock rolls his eyes.

Anderson sneers. “Oh, what is it this time? I can’t twizzle like an ice dancer, so I’m obviously the clumsiest idiot to ever lace up a rental skate? It’s not my fault your choreography is impossible.”

“If it were impossible, I wouldn’t be able to demonstrate it for you a dozen times a day, every day,” says Sherlock.

Anderson throws up his hands. “So I don’t have twenty years of experience!”

“I’ve seen six-year-olds with stronger edgework,” comes Sherlock’s cool reply.

Anderson gestures at Greg. “Do I have to put up with this?”

“You could use some work on your artistry,” Greg admits, at the same time Sherlock is saying, “No.”

“Oh, good,” says Anderson, as he steps off the ice and storms away. “Sherlock, you’re fired.”

“Oh, whatever shall I do,” Sherlock says dryly.

Greg glares at him through narrowed eyes until Anderson is packed up and out of the rink area. “And what will you do, you ninny? Anderson was the last of my students fool enough to take you on.”

Sherlock waves a dismissive hand. “It’s fine.”

“What, you’re planning on joining up with Disney on Ice? In case you’ve forgotten, Sherlock, it costs money to live.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“Because I know how much you enjoy mooching off your brother.”

Sherlock scowls. “You know I’ll find a way.”

The look Greg gives him is...sad? Whatever it is, Sherlock doesn’t care for it, and he looks away. “Yeah,” Greg says. “You always do.”

“I need the ice for the next thirty minutes,” Sherlock says.

“There’s--oh, fine, whatever.” Greg shakes his head. “It’s yours.”

Sherlock goes to the booth, plugs in his phone, and hits play. The sounds of French electronica fill the arena. Sherlock frowns, then hits skip. The music changes: top forty pop. Skip again: a classical film score. Again: indie rap. Finally, Sherlock nods in satisfaction and leaves the booth. He sits down on a bench, unzips a worn bag, and takes out his skates. He pulls them on one at a time, taps his heel on the ground to knock the boot in place, tugs the laces tight, and ties them. It is a methodical process that feels familiar to his hands and feet, one he has done thousands of times before. As the aglets of the laces slip through the eyelets of his boots, the irritation in his chest ebbs away, evening out into a quiet calm.

As soon as his blades touch ice, his mind and body hone into focus. Sherlock considers for a moment--does he have the mental acuity to be jumping right now? Well, what better way to find out than to try?

Sherlock skates a few laps around the rink, then glides forward on his left foot, turns backward, leans left onto the outside edge of his blade, kicks his right toe pick back into the ice, and vaults into the air to spin counterclockwise twice before landing cleanly backwards on his left foot. Perfect. He skates to the other end of the rink and performs the lutz again, this time a triple. Other end of the rink, another triple and immediately, a triple loop. Back to the other end of the rink, triple lutz, triple loop, triple loop.

Sherlock’s blood is singing through his veins. Does he dare to go further? He goes again: triple lutz, triple loop, triple loop, and a  _ third  _ triple loop! When he lands, he is grinning like a madman.

There’s something else he wants to do. It’s his jump. It’s not his alone anymore; a handful of the top skaters in the world have done it in competition by now. But it was his first, and it will always hold special significance. They  smear him as a cheater and an addict and ban him from his work, but they can’t erase his name from the line in the records: “On September 16, 2011, in the short program at the Colorado Springs Invitational, Sherlock Holmes landed the first ratified quad lutz in a sanctioned competition.”

Sherlock breathes out. He skates forward, turns, kicks his foot back, and jumps, pulling every part of his body in tight as he does--ankles crossed, arms tight over his chest--and spins four times inside of a second before his body opens up and he lands--too far on the outside edge, and he slides out and falls. No matter. He is back on his feet in an instant and trying again. This time, he lands, but his balance is all wrong, and he stumbles onto his other foot, but does not fall. So he breathes out again, and tries one last time: forward, turn, pick, jump, onetwothreefour, open, and he lands! And it’s clean, and the music is pounding in his ears: _“get that work make that work work,”_ and his body is as faithful as it has ever been.

Then Sherlock opens his eyes and sees the empty room, absent of judges, of coaches, of anyone, and remembers: this is not for him. This is not his anymore. Once, he thought it could be again, but at some point, realism must take hold. He is not welcome in this world.

Sherlock leaves the ice, takes his skates off, meticulously wipes them down, and packs them away. He fetches his phone from the sound booth, disconnecting it as it switches over to a Broadway show tune, and leaves the rink to catch the bus.

———

“You’re grumpy today,” Mikayla says.

She’s sitting on one of the benches by the rink and wiping off her skates. They’re the only two people at the rink for the moment. There aren’t a lot of kids in the area who are serious enough about skating to be homeschooling and taking lessons at noon on a Tuesday. There are even fewer of those skaters whose parents will put up with John as a coach. But the Stamfords are easy, laid-back people who genuinely want the best for their daughter, and Mikayla is a good-humored hard worker.

“Didn’t sleep well last night,” John says, leaning back against the wall.

“What happened to ‘eight hours of sleep are the foundation of a successful athlete’?”

“Life happened.”

Mikayla rolls her eyes. “John, if you don’t take your own advice you’re never gonna make it in the coaching world.”

“I’m not gonna make it as an adult if I keep letting myself be lectured by a teenaged girl.”

“Read some young adult novels. Teen girls are where it’s at.” Mikayla packs her skates into her bag, pulls on her fuzzy boots, and flashes John a brilliant smile. “Come on. Just skate it out, like you tell me.”

John tries to return the smile, but it’s tight around the edges.

“Oh, don’t act like you’re eighty. You just spent half an hour working spins with me, so I know you can  stand upright on ice .”

John sighs.

“Coward,” Mikayla adds.

That shouldn’t be what does it. John is 24. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He especially doesn’t care what a literal child thinks.

John shucks his jacket, tosses it onto the bench, and skates out onto the ice.

Mikayla whoops. “Hell yeah!”

John starts out simply stroking, skating idle circles around the rink. He flips around with an easy three turn and strokes backwards for a while. He hates to admit it, but Mikayla was right. He already feels better. There’s nothing on the ice but his body and the two four-millimeter blades that he’s trusting to hold him up. This is good. God, it’s so good.

A thought occurs, a wild, crazy thought. John skates to the center of the rink, glides to a stop, and lets his shoulders settle back. It’s been a long time, but he practiced this enough back when. Surely he still knows the steps.

John breathes, then begins.

The footwork going into the first element was nothing crazy, nothing like people are doing nowadays. This first element was his triple lutz. John skates through it rather than try the double or single and feel the sting of falling. Next up is the  flip-toe combination, which he also marks.

The flying camel he can still manage, and he knows it looks every bit as good as it did in Spokane seven years ago. He leaps into it and pulls his body into position: body and free leg parallel to the ice, shoulders and arms back. This, at least, is still his. The next element was another spin: not quite as good and clean as the camel, but still solid.

John feels the weight of his body and the old motions like opening a familiar book. His blood is pumping hot and loud in his ears. The next element was the triple axel. He should mark it, like he has his other jumps. He knows what will happen next if he doesn’t. There will be the pain of the fall, and the pain of disappointment. He might even re-injure himself. Anything could happen.

Anything.

John jumps.

It’s not the triple, or even a double--mid-air, his body opens up after a rotation and a half--but he  _ lands _ . For just a second, he is flying.

Then his leg crumples, and John goes down. He doesn’t stay there, though; he gets his feet under him, gets back up, and flies into his step sequence, twisting through turns  and footwork , from one end of the ice to the other and back to center, where he drops into his final spin and ends with his arms over his head.

He’s frozen there, panting, for a long moment before he hears the cheering. It’s quieter than it was the last time he skated this program, just the one person yelling and applauding, but it feels good.

Mikayla is at the edge of the rink with her phone up. John skates over to where she is and hops off the ice.

“What exactly are you doing with that?” he asks, gesturing to the phone.

“Social media, old man,” she says. “You won’t have heard of it.”

“Yeah, let me know how many views you get on that. I expect a full 50% of any ad revenue.”

“You got it.”

Mikayla packs up and leaves. John looks back out onto the ice for a long while before he sits down, unlaces his skates, and starts packing up to go back to the shop and man the counter.

Like so much he can think of, at least it was good while it lasted.

———

In a cluttered Denver apartment above a sandwich shop, Sherlock is making himself dinner. There is a laptop open on the kitchen table with a number of windows open: a spreadsheet of nutrition values, a chat that ended twenty minutes ago with a series of expletives, music notation software, and Instagram. A violin, bow, and MIDI keyboard are perched on a chair.

Sherlock shoves his laptop towards the center of the table and sets down his plate of a small slice of red meat, a little mound of brown rice, and a geometric green vegetable. He slices his meat and begins to eat it with one hand while with the other, he opens Instagram and begins scrolling.

He navigates his followed tags, occasionally pausing in his scrolling to watch a video or type a brief, scathing response. Wryly, he thinks that this may be the closest thing he has to a hobby. Spending one’s formative years skating, exercising, and skating is not particularly productive to discovering favorable recreational activities.

He has just typed, “The day you passed your seniors test must’ve been the day before the judges had their cataract surgeries,” when he sees another video and pauses to watch it.

After the first ten seconds, Sherlock taps it to turn on the sound. There is no music, only the satisfying crunch of blades on ice. He leaves the sound on all the same.

Sherlock’s chewing slows, slows, and stops. He puts his fork down on the plate. His free hand comes up to float in front of his face, two fingers pressed to his lips in thought. Halfway through, he inhales sharply through his nose and rears back, his face decisive.

The video has barely finished before Sherlock is shutting his laptop, pulling his chair away from the table, and stalking off towards his bedroom.

Five minutes later, he is darting through the kitchen only to snatch up his phone as he walks out the door and tapping out a single text.

_ Back in two days. SH _

———

On Saturday, February 11, 2017, John Watson leaves his house at 7AM. He walks past his sister, passed out in the recliner with the TV on, fetches his bag, gets into his car, and drives to the rink. He arrives by 7:15, and is the first person there. It’s his job to open everything up, and he wants to get a head start on some of his work.

He sharpens skates as the rest of the rink employees arrive. They’re mostly young hockey players trying to earn a couple bucks to put back into new gear and Miller Lite, with a couple teenaged girls who work at the desk when they’re not training. Mikayla stops by.

“I’ve got nearly 600 views on that Instagram video, old man,” she says. “And ten comments. Only three of which are spam.”

John smiles. “Are the other seven the Russian bots you pay to follow you?”

“Close! They’re thirsty teen girls.”

“Oh, wonderful. Do make sure they know that I graduated high school when they were probably in kindergarten.”

“I’ll do my best. Only God can stop a thirsty teen girl,” Mikayla says solemnly over her shoulder as she leaves.

The skating teachers start to arrive around 8:00 for the first block of lessons. One of them stops by the counter, drops off a pair of skates, and insists John have them ready by the time she leaves the ice. John nods tightly.

“Thanks,” she says, looking relieved. “I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”

The morning students start streaming in around 8:15. It’s a mix of ages and skill levels, although they tend to the younger and less experienced. John taught a few group lessons, after his number of private coaching students started to drop off and before the rink manager told him he might be better suited to the less people-oriented positions that were open. The parents range from nervous, frazzled moms in sweats trying to corral a toddler while they lace up another child’s skates to mothers in designer labels and full faces of makeup pushing their daughters’ bedazzled, wheeled skate bags, with everything in between. There are a handful of adult learners, who greet each other with smiles as they get their equipment on. Privately, John has always been somewhat intimidated by adult learners. It’s much easier to fall when you’re four feet off the ice and still all stretchy.

At 9:00, John leaves the back area and goes to open up the skate shop. Here he stays until noon, fitting and selling one pair of Riedell Pearls to a baffled woman and her very serious ten-year-old, and selling one pair of gloves, one pair of knee pads, one set of purple tiger print skate guards, and a hockey stick.

He eats his lunch in the back of the skate rental counter, behind a row of shelves. At 12:15, a woman rings the bell repeatedly and calls, “Excuse me. Excuse me? I can see you.” John does not respond or move. The woman huffs and leaves, probably to complain to the manager. Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does.

At 12:45, John returns to the skate rental counter and mans it until 2:00. The rink clears out of casual skaters, practicing young competitive kids, and coaches alike, and a crowd of young men with bulging hockey gear bags pour in for the weekly pickup game. As John is moving from the rental counter back to the shop, he overhears a conversation between two of the hockey players.

“Yo, what’s that dude’s deal? We should ask him to the bar sometime. He’s like, a skate wizard.”

“Nah, bruh, he’s weird. Some washed-up figure skater.”

Behind the counter at the skate shop, John gets out his phone and pulls up figure skating coverage, which he watches on and off for the rest of the day. The rink population waxes and wanes, going from hockey players to open skate to lessons. People drift in and out of the shop. John sells a few more items, does some inventory, and restocks the display of figure skating tights.

At 10:00 P.M., the rink clears out. John is closing down the skate shop when he happens to look up and see his manager trying to catch his eye.

“Tom clocked out early,” he calls. “We need you to resurface the ice.”

John hides his grimace and waves his acknowledgment.

When the store is locked up, he goes in to the rink and climbs onto the Zamboni like he’s mounting the gallows. If his manager didn’t hunt him down, he’s sure he’d never do it. Fifteen minutes of monotonous humming, of tracing repetitive, circular patterns around the ice, of himself and his thoughts? He’d rather get a root canal.

Still, it’s his job, and he has to get paid, doesn’t he? So he does it.

As John is circling, he happens to look up and see a man in a long coat leaning on the edge of the rink. He frowns. The rink is closed, and no one else should have been let in. And who sneaks into an ice rink for jollies? Hockey boys, probably.

When he’s done, John parks the Zam and approaches the man, who does not turn to look at him.

“Hey,” John says. “The rink is closed. Come back tomorrow.”

“I’m not here for the public skate,” the man says.

John has enough time to think,  _ British? _ And then the man is turning, and John’s breath catches in his throat. The dark, curly hair, the sharp features, the cultured English accent? He knows it all. Not so much from personal experience, but from TV coverage.

It’s Sherlock Holmes. Three-time national champion, two-time Grand Prix champion, World champion, and near-Olympian Sherlock Holmes.

John opens his mouth. Any one of a million things could come out. The thing that does is, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here because you’re going to skate for me,” says Sherlock Holmes.

John stares. He stares, and then he snorts. “You’re joking, right?”

“I rarely joke,” Sherlock says dryly.

“How did you...”

Sherlock cocks his head. “How did you catch my attention? Your student’s video. She’s very talented at editing, as well as manipulating the algorithms and tags on social media sites. She’s gradually amassing a significant following. How did I get here? Red-eye from Denver to Philadelphia, then an Uber from Philadelphia to here. I didn’t ask him to stay, so I will be needing you to drive us back to your house to get your things. We have a flight out of Philadelphia tomorrow at six A.M.”

John puts his hands on his hips, rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, and lets his head drop back to look somewhere to Sherlock’s left. “In case you missed it, I got injured. I retired. Seven years ago.”

Sherlock shrugs. “Virtue and Moir took a break.”

“For two seasons! Anyways, I can’t land my jumps.”

“You couldn’t land  _ one _ jump.”

Sherlock takes a few long strides forwards and closes the distance between them. He steps right into John’s space, looming over him. John stiffens his shoulders and jaw.

“You landed that axel. Your leg went out after,” Sherlock says. His voice is deep and dark and makes something in John’s system stand at attention. “It didn’t go out because it was weak, it went out because you expected it to. Your leg is fine. It’s all in here.” He reaches up and taps his finger against John’s temple.

John does not flinch. “Tell that to my coach.”

“Your coach was an idiot who couldn’t live with himself if you were injured again.”

John’s pulse is rocketing. His thoughts are racing down two separate channels, one saying  _ how dare he, how dare, he doesn’t know me, James knew me, James would never. _ The other track is made of wordless sense-images: the anticipation of skating into a jump, the focused determination of being in the air and keeping your body in check, the elation of a clean landing. Longing.

Meanwhile, Sherlock appears single-minded. “You succeed when the pressure is on,” he says. “You fell off that single axel. Your triple will be clean.”

John leans away and scoffs. “Are you serious?”

Sherlock’s expression does not falter. It is steady and true. “Deadly.”

John takes a step back. He considers Sherlock through narrowed eyes. He thinks about those sensations, about being in Spokane, seventeen and glorious, the crowd roaring for every flawlessly executed jump.

“I’ll get my skates.”

“You don’t have to.” Sherlock points to the bench where children get their gear on before lessons. John’s skate bag is sitting there.

“That was behind the rental counter.”

Sherlock gives him a look that plainly telegraphs, “Please.”

John shucks off his shoes and gets his skates on. Sherlock waits quietly, leaning against the wall around the rink. As John is stepping onto the ice, Sherlock grabs his arm. John twitches.

“Remember,” Sherlock says, “you’re not trying to do your triple axel. You’re doing it. It’s already done.”

John nods stiffly, and skates onto the ice.

He could warm up by trying smaller jumps, but what’s the point? He’s in this or he isn’t. He skates a couple of laps around the rink, looking straight ahead of him and never to the man at the edge of the rink. It occurs to him more than once that this is utter madness. Strangely, this doesn’t stop him.

John thinks through the steps of an axel as his coach had taught him as a child: legs, arms, legs, take off, rotate, land. Does his body even remember how to do the triple anymore, after all this time? He ran it enough times. Logically speaking, it should.

He turns so he is skating backwards on his right foot, leans onto an outside edge, and preps his body, turning it so it faces outside, one leg ready to step forwards for the takeoff. The other athletes he skated with as a child all hated their waltz jumps and then hated their axel in turn, the forward takeoff feeling too much like jumping off a cliff into thin air. John lived for it. He had his axel in his first month in some kid’s secondhand skates.

Legs, arms, legs, take off, rotate, land. Legs, arms, legs, take off, rotate, land.

John steps forward onto the left outside edge and jumps.

For one moment in time, he flies.

John’s body opens up, his right foot comes down to catch securely on the ice and glide backwards, and his left leg swings behind him to balance him out. His arms are spread wide, and he’s shouting even before he’s fully checked out of the jump.

“Fuck yes! There it is!” John slides to a stop, punches the air, and runs his hands back through his hair.

From the edge of the rink, Sherlock is clapping.

John skates over to where he’s standing. His face is stretched so tight with his grin that he doesn’t know if he’ll ever stop.

“Fuck yes,” he says again.

Sherlock is barely even smiling. He looks entirely unsurprised. He looks, at most, smug.

“The flight is at six tomorrow morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RL skating references made in this chapter:
> 
> One time while rehabbing from an injury, Yuzuru Hanyu could not seem to land his single or double axel. His coach, mostly just out of curiosity, told him to try the triple axel. He landed it right off. As his coach said, "His body only remembered how to do the triple."
> 
> John Watson returning after a retirement that lengthy is extremely rare, but not completely unheard of. Deanna Stellato retired at age 17 due to injury and then returned in 2016 at 33 to skate in pairs. Virtue and Moir took a two-year break in the middle of their career, as mentioned here.
> 
> Side note: I have made the executive decision to include very few real-life figure skaters in this fic, because it presents the uncomfortable problem of me having to make John Watson a higher-scoring skater than the Nathan Chens and Yuzuru Hanyus of the world. Pairs and dance are largely safe, and ladies slightly so, but for men, do not expect to see Adam Rippon.


	2. When I'll Be Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes down the hall to his bedroom, drags a suitcase and a backpack out from under the bed, and starts stuffing them full of his earthly possessions. Sherlock’s right, there isn’t much. Honestly it’s just his clothes and laptop. Everything else is easily replaced.
> 
> Sherlock scrolls down to the related videos and taps the one for John’s free skate. The performance is gorgeous. John’s stamina is evident in his consistency throughout the program. His jumps in the later part of his program are every bit as solid as those in the first part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a beefy boy, folks. It's the first part of what was initially going to be one chapter, but which I realized I should definitely, definitely split into two. As ever, constructive criticism is welcome, as I am my own beta.
> 
> I'm naming every chapter (so far) after lyrics from a song. This one's is particular corny. Points to whoever can spot it.

They are halfway back to John’s house before some of what Sherlock said starts ringing up odd.

“I’m sorry,” John says, “did you say you took an Uber from Philadelphia?”

Sherlock is in the passenger’s seat of John’s Honda, tapping away on his phone. “Yes.”

“You couldn’t, I don’t know, rent a car?”

“Don’t have a driver’s license.”

“Of course you don’t.”

John quietly calculates what the cost of a 150-mile Uber ride must be. Five hundred dollars? More? And that in addition to a last-minute plane ticket from Denver to Philadelphia, so add on another $1,500? And then _two_ tickets back—another $3,000? What must it be like to be able to drop John’s entire monthly income on a whim?

Oh, God, income. With a sinking feeling, he remembers the other major roadblock between competitive skaters and success. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Um,” he says. “Exactly how—”

“Don’t worry about the money.”

John blinks. “How did you—”

“We were talking about how I got here, which cost what, to you, is a considerable sum. The next logical thought is how you will afford the costs of being an elite athlete, as you are not a wealthy man and sponsorships will be thin on the ground. Hence, I felt it was necessary to reassure you that you don’t need to worry about the money. I will not require a fee for coaching or choreographing, as I am supported by other endeavors. Your expenses will be paid.”

Passive tense. Nice. “And equipment? Costumes? Transportation? Personal training?”

“I will be filling a number of roles.”

“Are you...qualified?”

Sherlock looks up from his phone briefly to shoot John a look. “Long ago, I realized that I was the only person who could meet my standards. I made myself into the best choreographer, nutritionist, personal trainer, and athlete that I could. I could recite my education and experience for you, but suffice it to say: I am, at minimum, ‘qualified.’”

Alright, then.

John pulls into his driveway. Harry’s car is not there, which means either that she’s got a late shift at the Walmart or she’s decided to do her drinking at the bar in town. A knot settles in John’s stomach. Considering what Sherlock saw in him based on one video and a once-over, how much more will he see in a house? You don’t have to be clever to figure out what his home life is like.

“You don’t have much to pack, so we should be able to manage by ourselves,” says Sherlock. “It shouldn’t take more than two hours to get to Philadelphia at this time and with your driving, so we should be at the airport by one AM. You will need to sleep, I assume.”

“Yes, most people do.”

“I can watch your bags while you do.”

“We can trade off.”

“No need.”

“You don’t sleep?”

Sherlock scoffs. “Sleep is boring.”

John shrugs and gets out of the car. Sherlock follows.

As they go inside, Sherlock doesn’t look up from his phone. How much can he see out of the corners of his eyes?

“I’ll just be a couple of minutes,” John says.

He goes down the hall to his bedroom, drags a suitcase and a backpack out from under the bed, and starts stuffing them full of his earthly possessions. Sherlock’s right, there isn’t much. Honestly it’s just his clothes and laptop. Everything else is easily replaced. He takes just a few of the medals from the wall and adds them to the disorganized jumble of clothes. His skating gear is in the bag in his trunk already. His trunk—oh, hell, what is he going to do with his car? Sherlock has a plan for everything. Surely he’s thought of that.

From the living room, a door opens. “Who the hell are you?” says the unmistakable voice of Harry Watson.

Oh, fuck.

John hastily zips up his suitcase, swings his backpack on, and hurries down the hall. Harry is leaning back against the door, eyeing Sherlock with something between bewilderment and anger. Sherlock has one finger up in the unmistakable sign for “just a minute.”

“Harry,” John says.

She looks from Sherlock to John. John watches as her eyes track from his face, to the backpack slung over his shoulder, to the suitcase in hand behind him. He watches her face morph from confusion, to unambiguous betrayal, to careful blankness.

“I had to,” John says.

“You had to,” Harry repeats hollowly. “Of course you did. You always have to.”

Anger flares hot in John’s face. “What did you expect, Harry? You wanted me to stay here for you to shout at?”

“I expected you to stay here and be family, John,” she snaps. “How am I going to pay the bills by myself?”

“Buy cheaper vodka,” John says shortly. “Are you going to get out of my way?”

Harry’s shoulders stiffen for a second. John spreads his stance very slightly, just enough to brace if she does what she sometimes does. But Harry doesn’t. Instead, she slumps, and shuffles to the side, clearing the doorway. John marches forward, wrenches the door open, and leaves. Sherlock follows.

In silence, John loads his things into the trunk as Sherlock gets into the car. The silence remains unbroken as John punches the directions to the Philly airport into his phone, pulls out of the driveway, and navigates onto the highway.

Sherlock speaks first. “Do you mind if I put on music?”

“Go ahead. Aux cord is right there.”

Sherlock plugs his phone in. The music comes out of John’s tinny car speakers. John cracks a smile.

“You’re a Kanye fan?”

“When it suits my purposes,” Sherlock says.

“Your purposes?”

“Music helps me hone my mind down a particular path.”

“And what path would that be?”

“Currently, designing a plan to get you ready to compete this September.”

“September?” John snorts. “You’re kidding.”

“Recall, if you will, what I said regarding my sense of humor.”

“I thought you meant, I don’t know, next season. Stumble back onto competitive ice around mid-2018.”

“Next season won’t be an Olympic year.”

What? What does it being an Olympic year have to do with…

Oh.

“You’re insane,” John says.

“I have been informed as much on numerous prior occasions, so consider me well aware.”

“You want to take an athlete who has, basically, been cryogenically frozen for the last seven years and you think you’re going to get him—”

“To the Olympics, yes.” Sherlock is still tapping away on his phone. “And you aren’t just going. You’re going to win.”

John just shakes his head.

Sherlock puts his phone down, sits up straighter in his seat, and looks dead ahead at the road. “Tell me, John, whose capabilities are you doubting? If the answer is mine, turn around right now. I cannot accomplish anything if you do not have absolute faith in me.”

“It’s not you,” John mutters.

“Well, then, if you believe me, and I believe in you, then take the next logical step,” Sherlock hisses.

John has no response to this. Sherlock sits back and returns to his phone. “Dark Fantasy” fades out and into an instrumental arrangement of “Papa Can You Hear Me.”

“Sorry,” John says eventually.

“You still don’t believe me. It’s fine. You will eventually. I only need you to trust me insofar as my direction goes.”

The map app on John’s phone directs him to take the exit onto another highway. He does so. “What are you, then, my coach?”

“More or less. Think of me as a consultant.”

“Uh. Who’s my actual coach, then?”

“You don’t want my name down as your primary coach. It’ll look bad for you. We’ll be working with Lestrade.”

Greg Lestrade? John swallows.

Sherlock glances sideways at him, then looks back down. “You’re intimidated by his reputation. Don’t be. His methods are precisely what you need. He has turned out well-balanced, well-rounded skaters, almost without exception.”

John eyes the exception sitting in his passenger’s seat and says nothing.

“Ah. Now you’re thinking about my reputation.”

John bites his lip. “Can you blame me?”

Sherlock grimaces. “You plainly don’t believe the story the media told, or you wouldn’t be here. It isn’t that you don’t care. You’re a person of strong moral character; you would never have stayed in Pennsylvania after your mother died if you weren’t.”

John flinches.

“The idea of cheating is detestable to you. Ergo, you don’t believe it.” Sherlock aims the full force of his gaze on John. “I need you to tell me why.”

“Cleveland, 2009,” John says.

Sherlock frowns. “Excuse me?”

“2009 Nationals in Cleveland. It was your first year competing in juniors and my last. Do you remember?”

Sherlock looks up from his phone and tilts his head. “I could if I tried.”

John laughs. “Of course you don’t. I’d been junior national champion the last two years, so I remember it. You were thirteen years old and you skated like...like nothing I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t even be angry I didn’t win, because my best couldn’t match up to yours. The artistry, the huge, incredible jumps, the sheer thought that went into designing your program. When I found out you’d choreographed it yourself I couldn’t believe it at first, because who could be all of that at once? But then, at the same time, you performed it like it was part of you, so it didn’t take me long to believe it. We stood on the podium—you were so small that even on the higher step, we were the same height. And I remember thinking…” John shakes his head. “I thought, ‘Wow, he’s going to be something.’”

Sherlock says nothing, but he does not go back to his phone.

“No way that athlete would go and do cocaine the same day as his drug test,” John says. “Not ever, and especially not after he won the national championship, and especially not after he just qualified for the Olympic Games.”

There is a long stretch of silence, after which Sherlock says, “Thank you. There are...few who believe me.”

“Well, when you act like a massive jackass your entire career, you will find that there are people who celebrate your downfall.”

As soon as the words are out, John is terrified he’s made a huge miscalculation. Here he is with someone who’s basically a stranger, and he called him a jackass. God, why does he even step outside his door? He looks sideways at Sherlock to gauge his reaction. To his surprise, Sherlock has a broad grin on his face. John can’t help but grin back, and then they’re chuckling, and then laughing.

“I can’t believe I called you a jackass,” John says through giggles.

“It’s true, I am a jackass,” Sherlock admits. “I’ve been fired as a choreographer seventeen times.”

This sets off another fit of laughter. “My God, how do you make a living off of being constantly unemployed?”

“I dabble,” Sherlock says evasively, with a twinkle in his eye.

Privately, John wonders how he can make enough money to drop five grand on a spontaneous overnight trip across the country by “dabbling.”

“You’ll understand when you see your room.”

“My—sorry?”

“Oh! I should have said earlier. You’ll be staying in my spare bedroom.”

John looks skyward with a silent plea to the heavens. “Your...spare bedroom.”

“Yes. It’s close to the rink and rent-free. There are other advantages, but you won’t like them as much.”

John’s mouth has gone dry. His entire life, he’s lived either with family or with, well, James, who was practically family. And James always kept their coaching relationship to the rink. From the sounds of it, this relationship is going to penetrate every corner of his life. Is he prepared for that? He looks sideways at Sherlock, and thinks about how it felt to land his axel.

Yeah, he can deal with that.

“As long as you’re not a heavy partier,” John deadpans.

Sherlock cracks a small smile.

“Now,” he says, “I require information. Tell me about what your diet and training habits have been like for the last seven years, with details. What would you say your protein intake has been?”

Oh, God.

The conversation takes them all the way into Philadelphia and to the airport, by which point Sherlock’s natural slight scowl has deepened into a profound frown. John is yawning and gradually fading from the entire exchange, which seems to only exacerbate Sherlock’s irritation.

“I don’t even know what it would look like to only go to the gym three times a week,” Sherlock is muttering.

“Work a job, and you’ll see,” says John. “Oh, shit, where should I park? For that matter, what am I doing with my car?”

“I found a buyer half an hour ago. Tape the key to the bottom of the exhaust pipe. The money should be in your account in a few days.”

“Nice. Very spy movie.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about. Park in the daily lot.”

John finds a spot, parks, gets his things out of the trunk, and tapes the key to the bottom of the exhaust pipe. No longer being behind the wheel of a car lets him sink into a tired fog. He is vaguely aware of navigating the check-in process and security, and of finding their gate. Sherlock has barely gotten out the words, “I’ll watch our things as you nap,” before John has put his backpack under his head, laid out on the floor, and nodded off.

———

The airport at these hours is practically deserted. This provides numerous advantages to Sherlock, not the least of which is his ability to monopolize the only convenient electrical socket so that he can charge his phone. After several hours of use en route to the outskirts of Pennsylvania and then again going back to the airport, it is in dire need of power.

Sherlock plugs in the charger and his sleek, slate gray headphones, navigates to Youtube, and taps in “John Watson SP US Champs 2010.” This far back, USFSA doesn’t really care to send the DMCA takedown requests, so the video is easy to find. There is only one, and it only has around 10,000 hits. The video loads, then Sherlock hits pause and scrolls down to the comment section.

“Flash in the pan. Too bad.”

“Ugh, if he’d been at the Olympics maybe US would have an actual MEDAL from Vancouver.”

“I’d fuck his camel spin.”

There are a few more in similar veins. Sherlock reads them, then scrolls back up and watches the video. It’s truly a beautiful performance, showing mastery of the sport well beyond the age John had been at the time. The musical choice is sound. Unique, but not obviously trying, and it fits John’s skating style. Unfortunate that this was before lyrics in music were permitted. The vocal version of the song is exquisite.

In the video, the youthful John Watson receives his score, a personal best, and claps his hand over his mouth. His coach jumps to his feet to cheer, then thumps John on the back while John still sits in wordless shock.

Sherlock scrolls down to the related videos and taps the one for John’s free skate. He winces when he sees the title of the music flash up on the bottom of the screen. Turandot? Surely John didn’t choose this music himself. It doesn’t suit him at all. And while John’s short program costume was unexciting but flattering and attractive, his free skate costume is flat-out boring: black pants and a white shirt. Someone probably told him that a simpler costume would keep the viewer focused on his skating. Someone ought to be fired.

Nevertheless, the performance is gorgeous. John’s stamina is evident in his consistency throughout the program. His jumps in the later part of his program are every bit as solid as those in the first part. His artistry is less impressive, but it’s competent.

Sherlock exits out of the Youtube app. Before he can open the document with his notes and plans, his phone buzzes with a text message.

_I understand you have a number of upcoming expenses. MH_

Sherlock rolls his eyes and taps out a response.

_I understand you have the entirety of Gangneung’s cuisine to be devouring. SH_

_I do have the luxury of engaging in vices that are entirely legal. How is the business, brother mine? MH_

Sherlock bares his teeth.

_None of yours. SH_

_It must be booming, for you to be making lofty promises to retirees. While I am every so pleased you have acquired a confidante, I do hope you are making responsible choices. MH_

_I can manage. SH_

_You may find that managing alone is rather more trouble than you anticipate. If only there were people with extensive resources who are on your side. MH_

_You’re only ever on your side. SH_

Sherlock mutes the conversation and opens his notes.

———-

John must have woken up some point, because he had to have gotten himself onto the plane. But to the best of his memory, he fell asleep on the floor of the Philadelphia airport and woke to Sherlock shaking his shoulder.

“Get up. We’ve landed.”

“Whazzit?” John mumbles.

“We’re in Denver. Drink this.”[1]

Sherlock shoves a bottle of water towards him, which John takes.

“The air here is drier,” Sherlock says. “You’ll need to hydrate more.”

John guzzles the water down. He finds he’s already thirsty. Probably the recirculated plane air.

“How are we getting from here to—wherever we’re going?”

“I have a man,” Sherlock says.

“Okay.” Cryptic, but okay.

They retrieve their belongings from the overhead and file off the plane. They are halfway to the baggage claim before John checks the time and realizes that he’s expected at work in fifteen minutes. He calls his boss’s phone, knowing he won’t pick up, and leaves a voicemail like a coward, explaining that he is quitting. He texts his students to let them know they’ll need a new coach and recommends a colleague he knows is good. Mikayla is the only one to respond.

 _Were you kidnapped?_ Followed by an emoji with a shocked, open mouth.

_Yes. No, I’m coming out of retirement. I’m in Denver with my new coach right now._

She responds with the exclamation mark emoji, praising hands emoji, and confetti emoji.

John grins. _See you at Nationals._

She sends back a gold medal emoji, followed by _Lovingly, 2018 U.S. Novice Ladies’ Champion Mikayla Stamford._

At the curb outside the airport, Sherlock goes to a silver sedan parked there and knocks on the trunk, which pops open. He puts his and John’s things inside and gets into the passenger’s seat without a word. John supposes this is the ride and climbs into the back. There’s just room next to a jumbled pile of books and empty takeout containers.

The driver turns around and holds out a hand. “Morning, John. Nice to meet you.”

John’s stomach drops. It’s Greg Lestrade. Oh God, he’s even dreamier in person, with that gorgeous bone structure and full-on silver fox look.

“Uh, nice to meet you too,” he manages, shaking the offered hand.

Greg grins, and John nearly dies on the spot. “Sorry for the state of the car. I would’ve cleaned, but I had just about no notice you were coming, thanks to His Highness over here.”

John laughs and hopes it sounds like the laugh of a normal human. “Yeah, I didn’t have a hell of a lot of notice either.” What the fuck? Did he just swear in front of the 1986 world champion? The very, very hot and bisexual world champion?[2]

“If you’re quite finished disparaging me,” Sherlock says in a pained voice, “could we get on the road?”

Greg rolls his eyes where only John can see, then turns around and pulls away from the curb.

The car ride into Denver proper is largely spent with Sherlock and Greg bickering over schedules. Sherlock wants to start this afternoon, while Greg does his best to convince him that he has enough on his hands with his other students today and that their best bet is starting on-ice work tomorrow. As the car slows to a stop in front of a row of nearly identical brick houses, Sherlock has bargained Greg into a brief session this afternoon. Neither party seems satisfied with this compromise, but Sherlock nevertheless helps John get his luggage out of the trunk.

“See you tomorrow,” Greg calls to John with a wave.

John waves back and arranges his face into what he prays is a casual, friendly smile.

“This is us,” Sherlock says, putting a key into the lock of a brick house with a black door.

John follows him up the stairs, through another door, and into the living area of a modestly-sized flat.

His first impression is that while it is not dirty, it is definitely messy. The coffee table is scattered with books, magazines, and the typical bachelor clutter. Off to the right he can see a kitchen, the table in which is littered with such objects as a laptop, more books, and an electric keyboard. Across the way, a door is open, revealing an unexpectedly neat bedroom. A hallway leads down to where John imagines there is a bathroom and a second bedroom.

“Nice,” is all John has to say.

Sherlock clears his throat, scuttles forward, and starts shuffling some of the books on the coffee table about. “Obviously it could use some, er, tidying up.”

John hides his smile. It’s rather endearing, seeing the cracks in Sherlock’s standoffish shell.

He nods towards the hallway. “Room’s down that way?”

“Yes, down the hall to the right. Go ahead and get unpacked.” Sherlock straightens and runs his fingers through his hair. “I, er, used it for storage a bit. The place came furnished, so there’s a bed and such. I can

John takes himself and his things to the room, which is as disorderly as was promised. There is exercise equipment, sound equipment, and a jumble of worn skate boots strewn about the room. But there’s a bed, a desk, and a closet, which is all John requires.

He starts to unpack his few belongings, a process which can’t help but remind him of the other times he has done it. California back to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania to James’s basement in California, and the big house in the countryside to the one in town. John thinks about his mother telling him all about how he’d have a bedroom all to himself, and how close it was to the rink, and how he’d never have to see his father again. He does not think about his empty bedroom in Catawissa and how Harry is probably already taking everything he left behind to the Goodwill. He does not think about sleeping in James’s basement and tossing and turning with heated dreams.

There is a knock on his door.

John stands straight and clears his throat. “Hello?”

“Get changed and get your gear. We’re going to the rink now.”

“Uh, okay,” John says.

Well, his first practice had to be sometime. It might as well be now.

“Let’s go!”

John, ever practical, goes.

* * *

 

1Athletes will train in places like Colorado Springs because the high altitude forces their bodies to adapt to harsher climates. Colorado Springs in particular is the home of the USOC and the headquarters of the USFSA, and is a big figure skating town. Lestrade and his people are in Denver because they still have the height thing, but have fewer other skaters to trip over.[return to text]

2In my notes for this fic, I have noted various real-life skaters that I have pulled inspiration from for different characters. Most of them are combinations of different athletes, or use a few small elements of an athlete but are otherwise pretty dissimilar, or I at least bothered to change the dates or medals on their achievements. Greg Lestrade, however, is pretty much just straight-up Brian Orser. Brian Orser is a simply lovely Canadian coach who appears to be attempting, Pokemon-like, to collect all the top skaters. He turns out well-rounded athletes who generally keep their heads together and bring their nice dad home many shiny medals. The Olympic men’s gold and bronze medalists, Yuzuru Hanyu and Javier Fernandez, were both coached by him. [He was very proud of his sons](https://www.indy100.com/article/everyone-loving-canadian-winter-olympics-coach-taking-pictures-viral-8216451%20). This meshing of Borser and Lestrade is also a bit of a shoutout to Drinkingcocoa, who is tremendously fond of both men and whose help in researching this fic was invaluable.[return to text]


	3. Back On My Feet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did Sherlock fall this much this hard when he was training his quad lutz?”
> 
> Greg laughs. “Oh, no. He fell much more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I’ve started using footnotes in this chapter. I’m probably going to go back and add a couple to previous chapters as well. My goal for them is that they will be unnecessary if you don’t want to read them, but optional extra fun information for people who are curious, or who want visual references. My other, ulterior motive is that you will find the information interesting enough that it enhances your perspective on figure skating, catches your attention, and drags you down into FS fan hell. Join me.
> 
> As ever, constructive criticism is welcome. I do all the editing on this, so I'm sure I miss some things.

“Oh, wow,” John says. “This is definitely nearby.”

“I loathe lengthy commutes,” Sherlock says.

The bus had made maybe two stops before letting them off a block away from the rink. John and Sherlock enter the locker room, which is blessedly empty. John isn’t sure he’s ready to look at other, more active athletes just yet.

“You need to warm up before we get on the ice,” Sherlock says. “What’s your usual routine?”

John shrugs. “Some jumping jacks, some stretches.”

Sherlock looks like he’s just bitten down on a lemon.

“It’s more than nothing,” John says defensively.

“I need you to specify further than ‘some stretches.’”

“You know. Hip flexors, lunges.”

Sherlock’s expression darkens. “Demonstrate.”

Feeling more self-conscious than he has since his first session with a technical specialist, John demonstrates a walking lunge. Sherlock sighs.

“Here, like this,” he says. He comes around behind John, puts his hands on his shoulders, and presses down. John twitches. “You are more flexible than you give yourself credit for.”

“Says the man with the Biellmann,” John says.[1]

“How do you think I got a Biellmann?”

Sherlock walks him through the remainder of the off-ice warm-up, guiding John’s body into where he wants it. By the time he has finished with his minute of jumping jacks and they are putting on their skates, John finds that his heart is racing at a pleasantly quick rate.

As they get their skates on, John side-eyes Sherlock’s. What kind of equipment is that? The boot looks a little like a Riedell, but it’s not any of the models John is familiar with. And the blades say they’re John Wilson, but not which kind. John laces up his well-worn Edeas self-consciously.

They exit the men’s locker room and enter the rink. It isn’t crowded, but it’s fairly busy. John counts three skaters whizzing around the ice. Greg is working with a small, blonde girl on an equally small triple loop, which she keeps underrotating. There is a black woman with lush, full hair pulled back into a messy bun practicing footwork, and a dark-haired man with a short beard who is repeatedly doing what is either a mediocre triple flip or quite a bad triple lutz. All of them look vaguely familiar from skating coverage John has seen over the last few years.

Sherlock catches Greg’s eye and nods. Greg waves, then calls out to the other skaters.

“Philip! Sally! Come over here a second.”

Greg and the other skaters all converge at the edge of the rink where Sherlock and John are. John reads their faces. They all look to Sherlock first with expressions of repressed hostility. It is a moment before they see John at all. He tries to stay blank and not transmit how very, very awkward he feels.

“Molly, Philip, Sally,” Greg says, “this is John Watson. He’s coming out of retirement and joining us. He’ll be working with Sherlock and I.”

There is a flash of something across their faces, gone too quickly for John to parse what it is. Surprise? Disdain? Probably the latter. They were probably still skating in juveniles when John won his national title.

Greg points to the athletes as he names them. “This is Molly Hooper, here from Canada.” The blonde girl gives a shy little wave. “Sally Donovan, from France.” The black woman nods stiffly. “And Philip Anderson, American.” The bearded man does not even a nod, only tightening the corners of his mouth in what might have been intended as a smile. “I’ve got other students, but these are the ones you’ll probably be sharing ice with most often.”

“Nice to meet you,” John says, with his well-honed midwestern manners.

“Yes, very nice, we’re all just the best of friends,” Sherlock says impatiently. “Let’s all just go out for tea and biscuits and forget all about our jobs.”

John registers the lack of reaction from Molly, Sally, and Philip.

“John’s waited seven years, Sherlock, he can wait another two minutes,” Greg says. “Guys, go ahead and take lunch.”

The other skaters grab their skate guards, snap them on, and step off the ice. Molly goes to a bag by the bench and gets out a little lunch box while Philip and Sally head off towards the lobby together. As they go, Sally leans in and whispers something in Philip’s ear, which makes him grin broadly. The look of the grin makes John’s stomach turn.

“Okay, John, let’s warm up,” says Greg. “Sherlock, you want to handle this?”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, who is already shucking his skate guards and stepping onto the ice.

“You better follow him, bud,” Greg says, clapping John on the shoulder.

“Tell me your on-ice warm-up is an improvement on your off-ice,” Sherlock says, when John has skated over to meet him.

“It is,” says John, defensive.

“Show me.”

John runs through his usual routine: a couple of laps around the rink, a little footwork. When he comes back around to Sherlock and Greg, Greg’s expression is neutral, while Sherlock’s is rather more toward the displeased side.

“It’ll do,” says Sherlock. “We’re going to run your jumps, starting from the triple sal and working on up.”

“Sherlock, this is his first practice in over half a decade,” Greg says. “We don’t want to start with triples.”

Sherlock flaps a dismissive hand. “He won’t land a single clean jump unless it’s a triple.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“He’s right,” John admits.

Greg raises his eyebrows, then lifts his hands in a “go ahead” gesture.

John skates to the other end of the rink, swallowing around a knot in his throat. The insanity of all this is starting to set in again. What if the triple axel last night was a one-off? What if he just falls all over the ice and Sherlock realizes this is all some big mistake and sends him home?

“Remember,” Sherlock calls, “you’ve already landed it.”

John nods tightly.

As soon as he’s stepped into his mohawk to prep for the salchow, John’s nerves settle. His last thought is wordless, just the general sensation of the throwing of caution to the wind, and then he has no thoughts at all.

John lands his triple salchow cleanly and with a rush of satisfaction. From across the ice, he hears Greg exclaim, “Nice one!”

“Now your toe loop,” Sherlock calls.

John does his triple toe, and then his triple loop, triple flip, triple lutz, and finally, the axel. He knows the loop was a little messy. It’s never been his best jump. His axel, though, was very good, and his lutz is a personal favorite. He skates back over to Sherlock and Greg. Greg is staring at him slightly open-mouthed.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“Isn’t he good?” Sherlock says to Greg.

John flushes.

“Good, now let’s see your quads,” says Sherlock. “You have the toe and the sal, yes?”

“Uh, yeah,” John says.

“Get the harness,” says Greg. [1]

Sherlock scowls. “He won’t land them on harness.”

“Look, you were right about the triples, but I’m not having a skater who hasn’t jumped in years attempt a quad and not put him on harness.”

“If you want to watch him land so far forward he falls off the front of his toe pick, please, go right ahead.”

“Of course he won’t be able to land them on harness now; you’ve gotten into his head!”

“If I could say something?” John cuts in.

His voice sounds very small and timid. Sherlock and Greg both look at him.

“I want to try it off harness,” John says.

Sherlock smirks. Greg raises his eyebrows, but nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Which is easier for you?”

It’s the salchow, it’s definitely the salchow, but it was the toe loop that John fell off of in practice two weeks before the Olympics.

“I’ll do the toe,” he says.

Sherlock nods approvingly.

John skates away and breathes out. His heart is pounding in his chest. His mind races, but then he turns and lifts his foot to enter the jump and it all goes blank.

When John was first really gaining competence with his triples, he was struck by how hard it was to breathe while he rotated that many times and at that speed. The human body was never intended to move like that, after all. For that split second of air time, a skater has to override those instincts, force past the point of no return, and become something different, something more.

John lands with a fist pump and a shout, which is echoed by Greg with a loud, “Holy shit!” John skates back over to his coaches with a big grin on his face. Greg is grinning back. Even Sherlock looks pleased.

“I did tell you,” he says to Greg.

“Oh, don’t be smug, you’re terrible when you’re smug,” Greg says. “John, are you sure you haven’t jumped in seven years?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Maybe we should make Anderson retire for seven years,” Sherlock says. “Perhaps then he could come back and land a jump with four full rotations.”

“Sherlock,” Greg says disapprovingly.

Sherlock claps his hands together. “Excellent. Let’s discuss the quad lutz.”

John blanches. “Pardon me?”

“Sherlock, he’s been out of retirement for about twenty minutes. Go easy on him.”

“Why? He’s got an excellent lutz, and he’s coached by the first man to land the first ratified quad lutz and the man who coached the man who landed the first ratified quad lutz. The circumstances are ideal.”

“We can wait until tomorrow, at least. I know you’re about to take him to the gym and run him into the ground.”

“Fine,” Sherlock groused. “Let’s work on your loop.”

———

Of all of Sherlock’s strengths, he was never famed for his stamina. He tends to expend too much energy in the first half of his program and be left gasping by the end. Consequently, he is in the habit of taking frequent short breaks in practices earlier on in the season. As the season progresses, he gradually lengthens the spaces between them.

And Sherlock is not without empathy, and he understands that John has not had a proper training session in a long time. So after half an hour, Sherlock says, “John, feel free to take a break.”

“No need,” John says. “I can keep going.”

“You’re sure?” Greg asks.

“Yeah.”

They keep going. Molly, Sally, and Philip come back from lunch. Greg sets Molly to practicing her triple-triple combinations while Sally works on her spins. Greg goes to work jumps with Philip. Sherlock and John get to some footwork.

After another half hour has passed, Sherlock says again, “Would you like to take a break now?”

John wipes sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m good.”

Sherlock raises his eyebrows, but says, “Okay.”

Finally, after ninety minutes of practice, Sherlock says, “We ought to take a break.”

“Sounds good,” says John, who is now distinctly out of breath.

They get off the ice and put their skate guards on. “I’ll get lunch,” Sherlock says.

“Oh! Did you bring food?”

“No, I thought we could eat Snickers bars from the vending machine in the lobby. Yes, I brought food.”

John shrugs. Sherlock goes to the locker room to his bag, where he packed two paper bags. When he returns, he finds John sitting on the bench next to Molly. They are laughing together about something. He frowns.

“This is yours,” Sherlock says, handing the bag to John.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” he says.

Molly avoids Sherlock’s eye. “See you later, John,” she says, and leaves.

Sherlock sits beside John and unpacks his food. It’s the same thing that’s in John’s lunch bag: water, a few slices of low-fat cheese, and a sandwich consisting of whole grain bread, turkey, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mustard.

“I haven’t been able to fully stock my kitchen yet,” Sherlock says, “so you may find meals somewhat repetitive for the first week until I can get the necessary ingredients in. It doesn’t bother me, but I have been made to understand that most people feel dissatisfied without variety in their meals.”

John takes a bite of his sandwich and chews thoughtfully. “Oh, wow,” he says around his mouthful. “This is really good. What kind of bread is this?”

“I know a baker downtown.”

“That’s amazing. And this mustard is fantastic.”

Sherlock feels himself blushing and takes a long gulp of water. “It’s my own recipe.”

John chews and swallows before he gapes at Sherlock. “You made your own mustard recipe?”

“I found commercial products to be too high in sodium.”

John smiles back down at his sandwich. “Incredible.”

Sherlock’s face feels uncomfortably warm. He busies himself with eating his lunch.

Honestly, every part of this has gone better than he hoped. John has not fired him. In fact, John is showing every sign of actually trusting him. He works hard, he has not told Sherlock to fuck off, and he has even very nearly complimented Sherlock.

Naturally, things go south very soon after that.

“Molly was telling me about when you choreographed for her,” John says.

Sherlock swallows around the lump that has suddenly congealed in his throat. Here it comes. John will have heard from _normal people_ what Sherlock is like, and John will decide that it isn’t worth it. For some unidentifiable reason, Sherlock cannot abide the thought of this. He cannot bear to think of what he will do if he loses the opportunity to mean so much to this one man. Perhaps it is because he knows, in his heart, that this is likely his last, best chance.

“Oh?” Sherlock manages.

“I had no idea you choreographed for so many people,” John says. “I never heard about it or saw you at any competitions.”

And now it happens. “They all fired me and used someone else’s choreography in the end.” Sherlock’s hand is tight around his bottle of water.

“What? You’re joking. You choreographed most of your programs, right? So I’ve seen your work.”

“Apparently,” Sherlock says through gritted teeth, “I am difficult.”

“Yeah, but like, that’s the job.”

Sherlock grimaces. “I am...abrasive.”

“You’ve met my sister.”

Sherlock looks at John and looks deeper. He sees the shabby little house in Pennsylvania and how it had three bedrooms, and how all three of them had twin beds, including the empty room that could only have been Mrs. Watson’s.

“You deserve respect,” Sherlock says.

John meets his gaze. Sherlock looks away.

“You respect me,” John says. “Did you respect the other skaters you choreographed for?”

“No,” Sherlock has to admit.

“That’s fine then.” John swallows the last of his sandwich. “What’s the plan for after this?”

“On-ice for another two hours, and then we’re going to the gym. How familiar are you with the Gyrotonic system?”

John groans. But he stays, and that is something.

He doesn’t complain, even.

After another two hours, they finish at the rink and head to the gym, and John sweats his way through the intensive session Sherlock puts him through. When they have showered and returned to their apartment, Sherlock presents him with a protein shake and the inflatable “pants” that will squeeze out lactic acid and increase John’s recovery time. John says they make him look like the Michelin Man.[3] Sherlock does not understand this reference, which John is incredulous about, but this is also not a dealbreaker. While John is immobilized on the couch in the NormaTec pants, Sherlock presents him with the nutrition plan he came up with on the plane.

John’s only question is, “Where on earth do you get zebra meat?”

“Online supplier.”

“I’ve never heard of half of these foods.”

“I’ve linked information about them in the Google doc. I’ve already shared it to you.”

“Oh. Neat.” John lies back on the couch. “You know, I’m coming round to these. They feel amazing.”

“I made sure the manufacturers made them comfortable, to make them a more attractive alternative to the traditional ice bath.”

John goggles at him. “Sorry, you--of course you helped design them.”

Sherlock shrugs. “I have to keep busy.”

“Well, as long as I’m stuck here, I might as well watch something. Have you got Netflix?”

“What’s Netflix?”

John rolls his eyes heavenward. “Unbelievable. I’ll get us a Chromecast tomorrow. Want to watch something?”

“I have work to do.”

“What kind?”

“Consulting,” Sherlock says evasively.

“Alright, then, I’ll just see what’s on.”

As John flips through the channels, Sherlock gathers his laptop from the kitchen and retreats to his room. Even through his closed door, he can hear the quiet hum of the television. Sherlock expects it to drive him round the twist. Half an hour later, he finds to his surprise that he doesn’t notice it at all.

———

Dinner that night is an interesting affair in which Sherlock cooks some purple meat (“Elk, John”) with a knobby root vegetable that is starchy but is not a potato and a strangely geometric green broccoli-like plant. All turn out to be delicious.

John goes to bed tired in that satisfying way. Then comes the next morning.

He wakes up when Sherlock opens his door, although he does not open his eyes. He suspects that opening his eyelids might hurt. Breathing definitely does, and the concept of moving his actual limbs is entirely foreign.

“Time for yoga.”

John cracks his eyes open. It turns out not to hurt. “What time is it?” Speaking also does not hurt.

“Five thirty. Come on.”

John attempts to lift his arms, grimaces, and lets them fall back down.

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

Sherlock throws back the covers, takes John’s hands, and pulls him into a sitting position. That is...not great, but better than doing it himself.

John manages to swing his legs over and stand up with an almighty groan. He stretches his arms up. The apartment isn’t unbearably cold, but at this hour it’s a bit chilly. He’s regretting his choice to sleep bare-chested.

Sherlock does not say anything for a second, then he clears his throat and says, “You’re going to be fine. The yoga will help.”

The yoga, at first, does not help. But after the first few miserable poses, John finds that it is improving. His situation improves substantially after a very cold shower, and by the time he is finished with breakfast (a delightfully spicy breakfast quesadilla with spinach and white beans) he finds that he can move without pulling a face, if not completely comfortably.

On the bus to the rink, Sherlock pops an earbud into John’s ear. “I have your short program song.”

“What, already?”

“Yes.”

[ The song begins to play ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35XptNZU2OA). It’s so quiet at first John has trouble hearing it over the background noise of the bus, but then he makes out the quiet strings. The vocal line comes in, sung by a man with a melodic and slightly rough voice.

“Oh, I’ve heard this,” John says in an undertone. “This is the Bowie cover from that Netflix show.”

Sherlock frowns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stranger Things? Really?”

“Hush.”

The song slowly builds and builds until the singer jumps up the octave, singing plaintively, “We can be heroes, just for one day.” It fades back into the strings towards the end, and then finally to silence.

“Nice,” John says. “Yeah, I’m totally into it.”

“Good. You’re going to work jumps with Greg today while I work through the choreography. He’ll probably put you on harness while you get the quad lutz so he feels more _comfortable._ At least tell him to keep the tension slack so you don’t feel it.”

Keeping the tension slack, it transpires, does not do much good.

“Better,” Greg calls, while John picks himself up off the ice. “You were only a little underrotated that last time.” [4]

“Boy, it didn’t feel better,” says John. “Did Sherlock fall this much this hard when he was training his quad lutz?”

Greg laughs. “Oh, no. He fell much more.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. He acts like he’s a mathematician, but he gets reckless when he’s frustrated.”

As they speak, Sherlock whizzes past them, running through a complicated footwork series. John chews at the inside of his mouth. He’s going to be expected to replicate that?

“Don’t be intimidated,” Greg says. “He wasn’t born with those deep edges.[5] His choreographer practically beat them into him.” He claps John on the back. “You’ve got some fun to look forward to, let me tell you.”

As they watch, Sherlock leaps into a triple axel at the far end of the rink. He lands forward, swinging his arms, but does not fall.

“You see? When he’s on, he’s on, but he does have a habit of experimenting by flinging his body into the air and hoping for the best. Used to give me heart attacks.”

Sherlock zips past Philip so close that Philip yelps in outrage.

“You started with him right after his senior debut, right?” John asks.

“Yep. His last coach quit because he took his senior test when she was out of town. She wanted him to wait until he was seventeen and he didn’t, which was the last straw for her. He came to me because he said he knew he needed better control of his jumps and knew I taught good jump technique. That was about the last time he treated me like my opinions mattered.”

John nods. “He is definitely single-minded.”

Greg lets out a snort. “That’s for damn sure. He almost had his quad lutz when I started working with him, and we kept on it, but it wasn’t super consistent by the start of the season. First competition, we planned the triple, I told him to stick to the triple, and he went out and landed the quad.” Greg shakes his head. “I could only be so pissed off at him too. I wanted to shake him until his teeth rattled, but he was so damn proud, and it felt so good to see him so proud...I did tell him that if he scared me like that again I’d make him coach juveniles, and to just tell me next time he was about to do something boneheaded.” Greg tugs on the end of the harness. “Anyways, let’s try that a couple more times.”

After several more attempts, John retreats, nursing several new bruises, to the bench for a break, where Sally and Philip are chatting. As soon as John approaches, the conversation stops abruptly.

“Hello,” John says.

“So you’re letting the freak coach you,” Sally says with a sneer.

John’s pulse picks up. He smiles tightly, fetches his water bottle, and takes a long drink.

“Did Greg promise to coach you, but only if you tried Sherlock too?” Philip asks. “That’s how he got us.”

“You know about the drugs, right?” Sally says.

“I watch TV,” John says shortly.

“Did you hear he went to rehab for six months after they banned him?” says Philip.

“And it didn’t do him a lick of good,” says Sally. “You’ve seen how he acts.”

“Some people are just intense,” John replies. His voice has gone very calm and still.

Philip snorts. “And some of those people do cocaine the morning of their doping test.”

“Meanwhile, other people haven’t fully rotated their triple axel in two seasons.” John stands up. “Enjoy the rest of practice. You might as well have fun if you’re not going to land anything.”

Without looking at them, he finishes off his water bottle, tosses it into the trash can, and returns to the ice.

Sherlock is nearby, conversing in rapid Russian with a beautiful woman with dark hair tied up in a severe bun. John recognizes her from years of seeing her in the kiss and cry with various athletes, and before that in ice dance coverage from the eighties. Molly is nearby, looking lost.

When Sherlock sees John back on the ice, he excuses himself and skates over to join him.

“That’s Irene Adler, right?” John says.

“Yes. Very gifted choreographer. Most of Greg’s students use her.”

“Did you?”

“Once or twice. How were Anderson and Donovan?”

“Massive assholes,” John says, which makes Sherlock grin.

When they reach Greg, Sherlock says, “We’re trying the lutz without the harness.”

Greg throws his hands up in the air. “Fine! Fine, what do I know.”

“More than you give yourself credit for,” says Sherlock. “And in this case, you know I’m right.”

Greg rolls his eyes at John. “Okay, John. Let’s give it another try.”

John skates one circuit around the rink. As he’s approaching his coaches, he breathes out. He can do this. He can do a lutz, he can do a quad, what’s both of them combined?

As he vaults back and up into the air, he holds his breath.

Of course he falls. On the ice, he thinks back through the jump. Was that four full rotations? Did his blade come down cleanly backwards?

When he’s picked himself up and dusted the ice off his pants leg, Greg and Sherlock are both grinning.

“What?” John says. “Was that good?”

Greg looks skyward and shakes his head. “Two goddamn days.”

John looks to Sherlock, his breath catching.

“Congratulations on your fully rotated quad lutz,” says Sherlock.

* * *

 

1 A Biellmann is a position where the skater pulls their free leg behind them and at the level of or over their head. It is found both in spirals (when you skate on one foot for a really long time) and in spins. There are variations on where you can hold your free leg, but grabbing the blade of the skate is the most common. It’s nearly universal in ladies’ skating, but quite rare in men’s, because of the lower flexibility of most men. Here is [Michael Christian Martinez](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujHg23DiN1I&feature=youtu.be&t=12s) showing us a lovely example of a Biellmann on a male skater. (Meanwhile, in the comments, you’ll find some lovely examples of garbage gendered expectations bordering on homophobia in figure skating.) Here is [Yuzuru Hanyu](https://sportymags.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/yuzuru-hanyu-yuzus-moves/) (scroll down a bit) with a slightly less pretty one. I like when the skater’s upper body forms a nice, smooth teardrop shape.[return to text]

2 When skaters are first learning a jump or are adding an additional rotation, they work in a harness. It adds some stability so the skater can get the hang of where their body needs to be without doing the really big, painful falls. [Some are fixed to a line](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNR4ibDs-8Q) that goes over the rink, while others look like [a fishing pole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBzr51d4BKw) with a tiny skating teen as bait. They are quite delightful to watch.[return to text]

3 [NormaTec pants](https://www.normatecrecovery.com/) do look totally ridiculous, but a number of athletes swear by them for making the aftermath of an intensive workout less unpleasant.[return to text]

4 A jump is considered underrotated when between a quarter and a half of the final rotation is completed on the ice. More than half a turn is considered a downgrade and is counted as the next jump down. For instance, if you try to do a triple flip and finish half the last turn with your blade on the ice, it’s counted as a double flip. While trying to get an additional rotation on a jump, a skater often underrotates, but you don’t want to do it in competition. This is a hard mistake for most viewers to spot, but it can be a costly one. Often you’ll watch a skater, think they did well, and be confused by how poorly they score or where those little red dots in their technical score box on the TV coverage came from. This is usually because of underrotations.[return to text]

5 An “edge” is the [edge of the blade](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4hUpEHF3U4PuKLVha9XjZoz4uJU=/0x0:1018x1024/1200x0/filters:focal\(0x0:1018x1024\)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/10185103/Image_uploaded_from_iOS__1_.jpg). If you’re going straight, you’re on the flat/hollow. If you’re going in a curve, you’re on an inside or an outside edge, depending on whether it’s the inside or the outside of the blade that you’re on. A “deep” edge is where the skater’s body is at a shallower angle to the ice. Maintaining deep edges throughout your footwork is difficult and the sign of a more artistic skater. Ice dancers have to have great edges, as their whole sport is artistry, and singles and pairs can get extra points for having deep edges. [ is known for his fantastic edges. Here’s ](https://i.cbc.ca/1.4510298.1517331528!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_1180/patrick-chan.jpg?imwidth=100)[Jeff Buttle](http://photos.skatetoday.com/albums/06olys/BUTTLE20608012.jpg) with an inside spread eagle on a very deep edge. The deepest of edges can be found on the lady skater in a [death spiral](http://tunews.towson.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/death-spiral.png).[return to text]


	4. Finding the Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re afraid of falling,” Sherlock says.
> 
> “I’m really not,” John says through gritted teeth.
> 
> “You are. You won’t find your edge until you fall off of it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was unacceptably delayed by my life being absolutely slammed on all fronts. Here we are. This chapter title was actually nearly the fic title, but Working on the Edges is already a skating-related Johnlock fic, and I thought it was too similar. Sherlock's quote here is actually something my coach said when I was whinging about being scared of falling on my butt while working on edgework. My friend who I take lessons with and I were immediately like "damn, that's deep," and I filed it away to use in some gay fanfiction somewhere.

Sherlock frowns at his screen. He is perched in the chair in the living room, his laptop balanced on his knees. He is on his ninth “Top Tango Songs” playlist, and he is still coming up short.

“I want you to do a tango for your free skate,” he had said to John last week.

John blanched. “That’s....uh, a lot of energy to maintain over four and a half minutes.”

“You’ve got the stamina.”

“We’ll find something with a comfortable slow middle section,” Greg said.

After two hours of searching, Sherlock has still found nothing that fits.

“Are you still at it?” John calls from the couch.

“Yes,” says Sherlock in a long-suffering voice.

“Let’s just do a Moulin Rouge medley and use most of the tango song from that.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not? It’s sexy, it’s unique.” [1]

“No.”

“Fine, then, keep scowling at Spotify.”

“Can you talk and read the ISU handbook at the same time? I wasn’t aware you possessed that level of brainpower.”

John sticks his tongue out, then flops over sideways onto the couch, Sherlock’s spare iPad in hand and a PDF of the ISU handbook open on the screen.

Sherlock jots down a few more notes in the small black Moleskine he has balanced on the arm of the chair. He grinds his teeth. It would be one thing if there were definite, long sections of pieces that worked. Then he could cut a few different songs together until he had a cohesive selection. Instead, he’ll find one where the violin is perfect, but there’s unnecessary accordion in the orchestrations. Or everything is just right, except for the ostentatious electronic beat in the background. Or, God forbid, a beatboxer.

“Do you edit music yourself?” John asks.

“Yes.”

“Did you do that when you were competing, too?”

“No one else could do it in a satisfactory manner.”

John rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

Sherlock clicks “play” on another song. This one has _synthesizers_. He tuts and stops it.

“Do you edit music for other skaters?”

“Sometimes.”

“So you edit music, you choreograph for whoever lets you...what don’t you do?”

“I also consult as a nutritionist and personal trainer.” And more, there’s more, but that’s not for John’s ears, because if John finds out, he will leave.

John laughs. “And you can skate. Just a little.”

Sherlock flushes. “I don’t settle for mediocrity.”

“I can see that.” John smiles at him. Sherlock can’t look straight at it. John’s smile makes something in Sherlock’s stomach do a funny little flip, and he needs to focus on the work.

Then he clicks on a song that turns out to be a _trap remix_ of an otherwise perfectly fine tango, and he almost screams in frustration.

———

“Pull your arms in more,” says Greg. “You keep either underrotating or coming close to it.”

“Got it,” John says. “Hey, where’s Anderson?”

He’s gotten into Greg’s and Sherlock’s habit of referring to Anderson and Donovan by their surnames. He’s not sure how it started, or why Philip Anderson and Sally Donovan are Anderson and Donovan while Molly Hooper is just Molly, but it seems right.

“Sprained his ankle.”

Sherlock is whizzing past just then, working on a transition between two jumps, and has time to lean in and say, “Again.”

“Sherlock!” Greg shouts after him. He turns back to John with an eye roll. “He should talk. I swear his ankles are made of toothpicks. He mostly had the good luck to injure himself in the off-season, though, and we could always scramble to get him ready in time. Speaking of, how’s your hip?”

“Fine.”

It really is fine. John has been surprised at how fine it’s been. It’s a little sore after practices that are heavy on the jumps, but nothing unbearable. Even after he first dislocated it, it was painful, but the pain didn’t last long. It was the inability to hold his weight that had sidelined him in the end. Every doctor and every test had said he had no nerve damage, no torn ligaments or cartilage, no necrosis of the bone. Now that John knows it was all in his head, it’s actually a relief.

He continuously pushes away thoughts about James, and James’s quiet suggestion that maybe this was it when John couldn’t seem to get his feet back under him. He does not want to think about those wasted years, and what he could have done if someone had said to his face that this was something he could push through. Once the door had been opened for him, he had believed it. And his mother had been sick…

But all that is in the past. John needs to live in the here and now, in the lutz he can’t land cleanly.

On his next attempt, he lands, but on two feet.

“Better,” Greg calls.

Sherlock slides to a stop next to them. “We need to work on his step sequence,” he tells Greg. [2]

“Hang on, he’s nearly got the lutz.”

Sherlock heaves a tragic sigh. “Fine.”

John makes two more passes at it (one fall, one step out) before Sherlock, ever impatient, has decided that’s enough.

“Okay, wonderful, it’s coming along, let’s go.” He takes John’s arm so John is forced to follow him. “Start as if you’re coming out of the combination.”

John skates through where the quad toe-triple toe should go, marking the combination itself, and then skates into his step sequence. [3] It’s fine. Nothing spectacular, just fine. He’s always been slightly more of a technician than an artist, but he feels satisfied enough with his performance.

When he stops and looks to Sherlock, he knows that Sherlock does not agree.

“That’s a +1 grade of execution if we’re being honest,” he says. “Maybe a +2 if the judges are generous.” [4]

“Are you going to give me specific feedback, or just tell me how terrible I am?” John snaps back.

“You’re skating like you’re afraid,” Sherlock says with perfect calm. “When’s the last time you fell learning a step sequence?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Then you’re not committing. Try again.”

John pushes off to go into his step sequence—and Sherlock shoves him in the side and knocks him to the ice! Startled and unprepared, he lands sideways, thudding onto his hip. It takes him a moment to shake off the cold clutch of fear. It was a light fall, and his hip is healthy and strong. He’s fine.

“What the hell, Sherlock?” John demands.

“You’re afraid of falling,” Sherlock says.

“I’m really not,” John says through gritted teeth.

“You are. You won’t find your edge until you fall off of it. Come on. Try again.”

Sherlock puts out his hand. John takes it with more than a little suspicion, but Sherlock helps him to his feet. John tries again.

This time, he skates out of the marked combination with the rugged, “aw, fuck it” determination he brought to the triple axel, the one that Sherlock told him he could land after seven years of falling off of single jumps. He takes the adrenaline that the body floods itself with when it falls and converts it into positive energy, into his arms and body and legs and feet. He lets himself move faster than he wants to, leans into turns in ways he hasn’t done in years. Once or twice, he does fall, but he picks himself back up and keeps going.

When he comes to a stop just before where his final spin would come and looks to Sherlock, he finds Sherlock is nodding. John grins.

“Better,” Sherlock says. “Let’s talk about clarity and control.”

Half an hour later, John is sweaty and breathless and exhilarated, and Sherlock is almost smiling, which is an impressive compliment. They break for lunch and Sherlock fetches their food.

“I’ll be right back,” he says.

John returns to the bench with his lunch, where Molly is sitting with hers and chatting with an attractive blonde woman. John slides in next to Molly and shoots the blonde a dazzling smile.

“Hello,” he says, drawing out the second syllable.

Molly gives him a warm smile. “Hello, John. You looked very good out there today.”

“Thanks! You too.” John is fairly sure he isn’t lying. He hasn’t really paid much attention to anyone else on the ice, outside of making sure he doesn’t run into anybody.

Molly beams. “You’re sweet.”

The blonde woman angles her head. “Sorry, we haven’t met. You’re John Watson, right?”

“That’s me.” John takes her offered hand and shakes it.

“Mary Morstan,” she says. “I do publicity work for Molly and some of the other athletes here.”

“Nice,” John says, leaning forward. “So you’re here to put up all the nice pictures of us?”

Mary laughs and flips her hair. “And tell journalists all the lies you and Greg ask me to.”

“Mary helps me with my social media,” Molly says.

“I’ve got johnwatsonskate saved for you on Twitter and Instagram,” Mary singsongs, waving her iPhone.

“I see my reputation precedes me.”

“Molly might have mentioned you were training here.”

John turns to Molly, looking mock-aghast. “Do I have no secrets?” Molly giggles.

“Oh, good, John, you’ve met Mary,” Sherlock says, appearing suddenly behind them and causing Molly to jump and spill her Gatorade. “Mary, have you talked to him about press? We need to organize his announcement.”

Is he talking faster? He seems...brighter, somehow, more energized. Maybe it’s the break. Sherlock does seem to fade before John does.

“You’re behind the ball,” Mary says. “He was in the background in Molly’s Instagram story for a second yesterday, and everyone on Twitter has been speculating about who it could have been.” [5]

Sherlock sighs tragically. “John, give her your number so you can coordinate an announcement.”

“Absolutely,” John says.

He and Mary swap numbers and emails. When John texts her, he adds a good picture of himself with the comment, “So you don’t forget this ugly mug.” She grins when she gets it and texts him back a winking emoji.

“Okay, Sherlock, what are we up to after this?” John says, turning, then stops.

There is an expression on Sherlock’s face that John cannot quite place. It looks stormy, but as if the storm is clearing to something blank and wide-eyed. Is he shocked? Angry? What should John be doing right now? Is he expected to be saying something?

“Sherlock?” John says.

“I have to go,” Sherlock blurts.

He practically flings himself onto the bench and starts unlacing his skates with incredible speed. John looks on, bewildered.

“Uh,” he says.

Molly and Mary look unperturbed and continue eating their lunches.

“Greg can handle anything you need,” Sherlock says, throwing his skates into his bag without even tucking the laces in. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

Without another word, he swings his bag over his shoulder and rushes out the door, shoelaces untied and flapping.

“He does that,” Molly says sympathetically.

———

Before he even gets to the bus stop, Sherlock has his phone out, his headphones on, and his music transcribing app open. It had struck him all at once. One minute he was watching John flirting with Mary and Molly, and the next he was hearing music.

It shouldn’t bother him, seeing John talk to them. Mary and Molly both tolerate him, even if he can’t say they actually like him, and would not tell him anything that would drive him away. But watching John flashing his brilliant smile at them as they giggled at his silly jokes had made something hot bubble up inside of him that he could not name. He had almost opened his mouth to say something cutting. Instead, the turmoil in his chest had curled up his spine and into his ears as a melody: sharp violin, percussive piano, and a light but precise rhythm underlining it all.

Sherlock almost misses the bus, but scrambles on just in time, tucks himself into a seat in the back of the bus, and continues furiously tapping notes out on his screen. He is peripherally aware that he is humming quietly: “la-dee-da, la-da-dee-day-dah.” It’s the violin line. The piano and percussion are in his head still, but the violin is, at the moment, paramount.

Sherlock misses his bus stop and has to walk an extra four blocks to his apartment. He bumps into more than a few pedestrians as he goes. One of them tries to start something, but Sherlock does not stop walking, and the angry man gives up soon. By the time he reaches the apartment, he has a full minute of the violin line down.

He rips off the headphones, tosses them and his mobile alike onto his bed, picks up his violin where it is perched over his laptop, and begins to play.

Sherlock plays the emotions into existence, the unnameable, unidentifiable, red, roiling bile in his stomach. He plays until his wrist creaks and his elbow is sore and his fingers have indentations in them from the strings, and when he knows he has played the right notes into existence, he hurriedly jots them down.

By the time the sun has gone down, he has the rough draft of the first third down. The middle section brings him up short. It needs to mellow here, he knows. It requires a different energy.

It’s more languid now, and easier. It is not Sherlock, it’s John. Not the John on the ice, but the John on the sofa watching college basketball, the John doing yoga with Sherlock at 5:30 in the morning, the John who tells Sherlock he is amazing. It is, a tiny bit, flirtatious, because this is a John who has never seen a pretty girl and didn’t look a second time.

Sherlock doggedly fights his fading body as the night wears on, forcing his body to keep pace with the music in his head. In the wee hours of the morning, he reaches the final stretch. This section picks up again, but it is no longer about Sherlock’s nebulous emotions, or about John alone. It’s about John with Sherlock, John doing a triple axel just because Sherlock told him to, John who can’t land a jump unless he’s _not_ in the harness, John who Sherlock told to fall off the edge and who threw caution to the wind and did it. It’s John on the top of the podium at Nationals in 2010, in January 2018, at Pyeongchang. It’s the look on John’s face when they hang the gold medal around his neck. It’s John triumphant.

As the sun comes up, Sherlock finishes the final measure. He allows himself a satisfied smile. Just a little while longer. He’s nearly there. It’s just the editing and the recording now. How long can that take? He has the ultimate power over his body.

Once again, he fetches the little wooden box from underneath his bed.

———

Sherlock is true to his word. John does not see him for two days.

When John doesn’t see him by the next morning, he privately wonders if Sherlock is peeing in jars like Howard Hughes. He wonders if there’s a mini-fridge in Sherlock’s room, if he’s subsisting off of granola bars, or if he’s eating nothing at all. John’s seen him skip meals, so he knows he can go a while.

He eats breakfast and makes his own lunch—simple enough, since all of Sherlock’s usual lunch supplies are easy to find—and goes to the rink by himself.

“Where’s Sherlock?” Greg asks.

“Disappeared into his room,” John says.

Greg rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah. He does that sometimes. He’ll come out in a day or two, vacuum up all the food in the fridge, and sleep for twelve hours. When he was sleeping in my basement after he first came to Colorado, he’d pull that routine a couple times a month. You’ve been here, what, about a month? He’s past due for it, really.”

John spends his morning working with Greg and by himself. It’s an interesting change. What with Sherlock having only John to work with, John generally has someone coaching him at all times. He feels slightly unmoored without anyone giving him feedback. But by the end of the session, he has worked what he knows he needs to work on (mostly the hateful loop, which he has successfully dodged having to do in his short but will have to include in his free program) and is loose and relaxed.

His off-ice workout at the gym is also strange without Sherlock on him. John considers trying to get away without doing some of his least favorite exercises, but no doubt Sherlock would be able to tell that John had skipped them based on how he holds his fork or ties his shoes. So he does his whole workout, even the slide board. When he is finished, he is a comfortable level of tired and sore.

John arrives back at the apartment around 5:30. He hears nothing from Sherlock’s room. Well, he shouldn’t make dinner for just himself, should he? Not the best of manners. He goes down the hall to Sherlock’s room and knocks on the door.

“Sherlock?” No response comes, so he knocks again. “Hey, Sherlock? You there?”

There is a shuffling sound and a grunt from the other side of the door.

“I’m making dinner. Want any?”

“No. The samphire is in the crisper.”

John doesn’t ask what samphire or a crisper is, but he can figure it out. He makes his supper, which falls rather short of Sherlock’s usual creations, and eats it in front of Jeopardy.

John hears Sherlock a few times: shuffling sounds, a few curses, occasional violin music. He had seen the violin lying carelessly about, and Sherlock mentioned that he played, but John hadn’t heard him before this. It’s beautiful, virtuosic if he’s being honest. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. Sherlock does nothing by halves. Of course he’s a genius at this too.

John goes to bed to the distant sound of Sherlock running through a melismatic arpeggio on his violin over and over, the same five notes. It should be grating. Instead, it’s beautiful.

The next day, John repeats the same routine. The violin playing has stopped when he wakes. Only the sound of pages turning indicates that there is any life inside at all. Before John leaves for the rink, he leaves a few granola bars outside of Sherlock’s room, knocking on the door to let him know they’re there. He gets a grunt of acknowledgment and nothing more.

“Still nothing?” says Greg at practice.

“Nope.”

Again: skate, lunch, skate, gym, home. The granola bars John left outside Sherlock’s door are still there when he gets back. He does not try to get Sherlock for dinner, and just makes himself the same tilapia, samphire, and rice for dinner that he did the day before. He does a marginally better job of it.

To John’s surprise, Sherlock shambles out of his room somewhere around eight and shuffles into the kitchen.

“He lives,” John remarks.

Sherlock ignores him. He goes to the pantry, grabs a bag of Sun chips, and retreats into his room again.

There is no violin music that night, and none the next morning. John goes through his morning routine and to the rink.

“Maybe he’s dead,” Greg suggests.

“I saw him for about a minute last night,” John says.

They’re experimenting with different entries into John’s axel. It won’t add anything to his technical score, but it should count towards transitions. [6] He’s in a spread eagle and in the process of entering the jump when the door to the rink bangs open.

John botches the entry, pops the axel into a single, and falls.

“What the hell?” he snaps, as he’s picking himself up.

Sherlock is throwing his bag to the side and rushing onto the ice without even putting his skates on. John’s anger at someone startling him mid-jump evaporates as soon as Sherlock steps onto the ice and starts doing an awkward sort of shuffling slide to get to him. He looks like a limping penguin. Greg snorts.

“I’ve got it!” Sherlock shouts, waving his iPhone in the air. He’s got earbuds in his other hand. “Your free skate. I’ve got it.” He tries to skid to a stop and has to grab Greg’s arm to halt himself.

John gets to his feet. “Alright, alright. Give it here.” He holds out his hand for the earbuds.

Greg takes one and John takes the other. All the while, Sherlock is twitching and fidgeting as if they’re moving at a glacial pace.  As soon as the earbuds are in, Sherlock raises the phone and presses play. [7]

The music begins with a sharp trill from the violin followed by a complicated run, underlined with staccato chords from the piano underneath. It then launches into a liquid, decidedly Latin melody line led by the violin, with the piano acting as accompaniment. A light percussion line keeps rhythm in the background.

The melody is unpredictable but infectious. John realizes the corner of his mouth is tugging upwards in an involuntary smile. Greg catches his eye, and John sees he is smiling as well.

The violin line morphs into something smoother and sleeker as the piano takes the lead. The tempo does not change, but the mood does. It’s sweet, rather than sexy. The melody is lovely, but it’s not as distinctive and catchy.

The piano crescendos into a long line of cluster chords leading up, with the violin following, and then both decrescendo as they step down, down, down. Then there is that sharp trill and run from the beginning again, this time with more flourishes from the piano. The music launches into a variation on the first section that incorporates elements from the second, with more for both instruments to do and a more complex percussion line. The performances are both technically and expressively impressive. Finally, there is a sudden decrescendo, and then the music swells into a triumphant climax with one last chord from the piano and a high note on the violin.

Sherlock retrieves his phone and earbuds. When he reaches for John’s, John notices that his hands are trembling. John regards him with disbelief, eyes wide. He doesn’t need to look at Greg to see he’s making a similar face.

“Sherlock,” John says. “Did you...how...was that you?”

Next to him, Greg whispers, “The fuck.”

“You see,” Sherlock says in a rush, “I was influenced heavily by the classic Argentine tango, although the instruments are rather nontraditional. Typically it’s an orchestra with an accordion, but I disliked the timbre of the accordion for these purposes and lacked a full orchestra, which brought me to this more simplistic orchestration. I tried to steer quite clear of flamenco, although I’m afraid that elements may have leaked into the violin part. And—”

“Sherlock,” John says patiently, “that was incredible.”

Sherlock flushes bright pink. “I...oh.”

“Really, absolutely amazing. You did that in two days?”

“Well, the percussion is synthesized, and the piano is only me on my keyboard, and I’m only a mediocre pianist, so it could be improved upon significantly. I can record it properly this weekend with some musicians I know in the Colorado Symphony. I’ve already gotten in touch.”

John boggles at him. “That...was ‘mediocre’ piano playing?”

If possible, Sherlock blushes even pinker. “I consider myself to be far better on the violin.”

“As well you fucking should,” says John.

“That’s absolutely perfect, Sherlock,” Greg says. “Have you got it choreographed already?”

Sherlock shoots him a look. “Please.”

“Excellent. I don’t see a reason why you can’t start learning it now, if you’re game, John.”

“Definitely.”

Sherlock beams.

“Now go get your skates on, you ninny,” Greg tells him.

———

John _likes_ Sherlock’s tango. More than that, even; Sherlock suspects he might even love it. And he takes to the choreography like a duck to water. He’d learned the Heroes choreography naturally, it being a style he is used to and feels comfortable in. But this? This he devours, consuming every extension of an arm and all the quick, intricate footwork.

“Yes!” Sherlock shouts, as John works through the transition from his first combination into his quad salchow, marking the jumps. “Wait, wait. Come here.”

John skates over. “What’s up?”

“You don’t move your hips unless it’s absolutely necessary. You need to get them more fluid. Show me again, from the beginning into the combination, and this time let your hips go.”

John returns to center ice and assumes his starting position with his head down, shoulders back, and chest up. Sherlock hits play on the music. John’s arms fly up and he pivots, then checks out into a series of steps.

“No!” Sherlock calls out. John stops where he is. Sherlock skates over to meet him there. “Turn around.” John does so, and Sherlock puts his hands just below his waist, over his hips.

Sherlock is suddenly, intensely aware of what John is wearing: joggers and a tight, long-sleeved shirt that cling close to him and do little to disguise the lines of his body. His mouth goes dry.

“You,” Sherlock says. “ You need to loosen up.”

“Yeah?” John says.

Using his hands, Sherlock leads John’s hips back and forth.

“It shouldn’t come from your waist,” Sherlock says. He feels as if his entire sense of being is centered in the palms of his hands and the tips of his fingers, over the sharp bones of John’s hips and taut, stretched muscle. “Your hips should be like syrup.”

“Sweet,” John jokes.

Sherlock nods. His head feels like he’s swimming. What is _wrong_ with him? “Precisely. Try it again.”

John steps away. Sherlock’s hands fall to his side. They are still warm.

“Again.”

John does it again, and this time, Sherlock does not stop him. By the time he has finished the section they have learned today, Sherlock is grinning, and John is grinning, and they are both breathing hard, and Sherlock has forgotten entirely about that odd moment earlier in favor of the breathlessness of seeing his creation come to life.

“Okay,” John says, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Show me what comes next.”

It isn’t until later that night, when Sherlock finally allows himself to lower his exhausted, wrung-out body into bed, that he finds himself unable to shake the unnatural warmth in his chest and hands when he thinks about practice that day.

* * *

 

1This is an extremely funny joke to anyone who watched any figure skating competitions this past season. If you read the pre-season interviews, you will find literal dozens of skaters talking about how they’re so excited for their Moulin Rouge programs, since it’s such a unique choice that no one else has skated to. And then they all skated to it. There have been [multiple](http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/baz-luhrmann-on-figure-skatings-love-of-moulin-rouge.html) [articles](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-figure-skating-fell-hard-for-moulin-rouge-1518262337) about the proliferation of Moulin Rouges. It’s quickly become what skating fans call a “warhorse,” which is a musical selection that’s been done to death. (Swan Lake and Carmen are classic warhorses.) Just off the top of my head, without resorting to Google, I can list off the following athletes who had Moulin Rouge programs in the 2017-2018 season: Vincent Zhou, Ashley Wagner, Virtue and Moir, the Knierims, and Manta and Johnson. And that’s not a comprehensive list. If you only watch one, make it [Virtue and Moir’s Olympic free dance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOEKdWrtz6U). I’m extremely gay for that bit of choreography right on the first “Roxane,” when they both do that thing with their arms. Also that lift when Tessa sort of vaults herself directly onto Scott’s face.[return to text]

2 Step and choreographic sequences are the parts of a program that a lot of casual watchers look at and think of the “boring” part, because there are no big jumps or spins and it’s hard to understand what they’re actually doing. A step sequence is a series of steps and turns done in either in a straight line (a midline down the center or diagonally across the ice), circular pattern, or serpentine S shape across the ice. There are requirements about the steps/turns a skater must do. A choreographic sequence is basically just “go hog wild, just no big jumps or spins.” You might think, “Oh, that part looks easy, I could do that.” After a year of working on them, I can almost consistently do two basic kinds of turns. Step/choreographic sequences are my personal favorite part of a program, as I feel like they’re where the skater can really do something unique. There are a number of moves sometimes done in choreo sequences that are just beautiful, such as [Ina Bauers](https://planethanyu.com/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DE4DWWlUIAA_9Oj.jpg&key=611a14ac744b41c230807faba523e5b38dc947195c08c0c9263492b809364313) and [hydroblades](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/ok.A4kEez09QTAqzqrH.xA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2g9NjAwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-DEL-Del8386892-1-1-0.jpg). I have a post [here](http://songlin.tumblr.com/post/173971218386/stepchoreographic-sequence-examples) with some examples if you’re curious.[return to text]

3Repeatedly slamming oneself onto hard ice and a 4 mm blade with a force of about 10 G’s is not great for the human body, so sometimes athletes will skate through where a jump goes when they’re running their program to try to minimize damage. They do the transition into the jump, the entry, and then the exit. Yuzuru Hanyu is currently rehabbing an injury, and recently did an entire ice show where he did a bunch of his older programs and marked every single jump. People still paid hundreds for tickets. Like I said, there is a LOT to skating that isn’t jumps.[return to text]

4Grade of execution, or GOE, is part of the technical portion of a score. An element has a base value of points (8.5 for a triple axel, for instance) from which points are added or subtracted based on how well you do it. An element has to check off certain bullets to qualify for a GOE level. Two bullets is a +1, four is a +2, and six or more is a +3. If you’re curious, you can scroll down to [“step sequence positive bullets” here](http://iceskatingresources.org/GOEstepSpiralElements.html) and find the bullets for a step sequence. Sherlock is finding John’s first effort to be “creative and original” and the elements “matched to the musical structure,” because those are the bits he himself is responsible for, and because Sherlock, of course, can do no wrong.[return to text]

5This turned out to be clairvoyant. Less than a week after I wrote this bit, Karen Chen posted a picture with Mai Mihara on her Instagram at the rink where Brian Orser’s skaters train, and eagle-eyed fans spotted a man in the background. Twitter blew up trying to guess who could be switching to Orser. For days, Twitter was chock full of side-by-side comparisons of the mystery man’s hair and the curve of his thigh and calf with Boyang Jin’s. They put Setlockers to shame. (It turned out to be Yuzuru Hanyu, who we all already knew trains there. Someone spotted his mom in another part of the background and worked it out.)[return to text]

6There are two portions of figure skating scores, the technical (TES) and component (PCS). Technical is, basically, what jumps/spins/steps you did and how well you did them. Component marks are the “artistic” elements, which casual watchers tend to think means “expressive faces” or “their skating/song was pretty and I liked it.” It’s actually a combination of five characteristics: skating skills, transitions, performance, composition, and interpretation. There are arguments that PCS is sometimes scored based more on who the judges like the best more than who is truly the most “artistic.” This part of scoring is the one that’s easiest for outside opinion to leak in, like, for instance, scoring a Russian man who skated like hot garbage higher than an American who skated beautifully at the Olympic team men’s free skate because the Russian is Russian and has quads. Not that I’m still bitter or anything. Anyways, difficult entries do not give you any kind of bump to your technical score, while adding things like different arm positions within a jump do. This is, in my opinion, some hot horseshit. [More on the IJS here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISU_Judging_System), for the curious.[return to text]

7I once read that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. I endeavored to do my best, and included links to similar music so that you can judge how good a job I did. You cannot listen to John’s free skate music like you could his short program, as it is an original Sherlock Holmes composition that does not exist in our universe. You can get a general idea of what I’m imagining from pieces such as [Jealousy](https://youtu.be/qjxC-7f-Vhg) (which Karen Chen used for her [free skate](https://youtu.be/PpWSZY3XP8Q) this season) or this [Itzhak Perlman](https://youtu.be/F1ctv7Thtw4) piece. I’m envisioning more the former for the beginning section, the latter for the middle, and some combination of both for the end.)[return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about the excessive number of footnotes this chapter. I promise they won't get this long again. They actually reached such a length that I couldn't fit them down here in the end notes box. Never again, I swear.


	5. Two Can Keep a Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock feels better than he has in years. Every day he wakes up and there is work, good work, work that makes him feel alive like he hasn’t in years. It’s draining, yes, but he has his ways of coping with that. During the day, there is practice and training, and at night, there is his consulting work. He hasn’t been bored in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This looks like a very fast update, but actually I had been sitting on the previous chapter for a while, unable to get the time to format and post it. As ever, constructive criticism welcome, as I am my own beta.

“Do I _have_ to have a Twitter?” John groans.

He’s currently reclining on the sofa in the NormaTec pants, clearing his literal hundreds of Twitter notifications. The official announcement went out six hours ago, and since then his brand new @johnwatsonskate account has gone from zero followers to fifteen thousand. His Instagram is the same. He hasn’t checked Facebook, which he is leaving entirely to Mary.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Sherlock says. He has two laptops out on the coffee table in front of him. One has a series of complicated spreadsheets, and the other is turned away.

“I mean, I’ve had Twitter, but I had about fifty followers, because it was mainly just for tracking skating coverage. How do you deal with this much interaction?”

“You can customize your notifications more. Interact with fans occasionally. You need to rebuild name recognition. Jackie Wong retweeted the Ice Network article about your coming out of retirement and tagged you, which is helpful.”[1]

“You could call it helpful, I suppose,” John mutters. “This is stupid. I’m not competing in a popularity contest. Why can’t I just skate?”

“I don’t disagree. Unfortunately, publicity is part of the game. If you’re going to Pyeongchang, we need to win at every aspect of that game.”

“Ugh.” A thought occurs to him. “Hang on. Do you have a Twitter?”

“Seven.”

“Seven!”

Sherlock holds up a hand and ticks off the accounts as he names them. “There’s @sholmes, which is the official account Mary created for me in 2011. I update it occasionally with commentary on current skating news, et cetera. Then I have my fan accounts. There are two English-language accounts, one based out of Michigan and one out of Toronto, and one account each for Japan, Korea, Russia, and Italy. I keep my ear to the ground.”

“Do you speak—of course you do.”

“My Korean and Italian are slightly weaker in conversation, although I pass for fluent online. The Italian also speaks French and English.”

John grins. “Do they all have personas?”

“And side interests. The accounts wouldn’t be believable otherwise.”

“Oh my God. You got into kpop, didn’t you.”

Sherlock grimaces.

“You have to tell me your handle.”

“Why?”

“Please, you have to.”

Sherlock heaves a tragic sigh. “It’s underscore ‘queen,’ underscore ‘Yuna.’”

John, already snickering, types the handle in. “Oh my God, your avatar is a picture of Dabin Choi in a flower crown. Did you make that?”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, resigned.

“I can see you made this edit of yourself skating to a BTS song. How many of your accounts are teen girls?”

“The Korean, Russian, and Canadian accounts. The American is a middle-aged housewife, as is the Japanese one. And the Italian is a retired coach who hates the IJS, the current age requirement for seniors, and most of the major federations.”

John keeps scrolling through @_queen_yuna’s feed. It’s a combination of skating GIFs and opinions, Korean idols, Korean dramas, and cute animals. The skating content is chiefly Korean skaters with a few scattered Canadians, Europeans, and Americans. There are hardly any Japanese athletes at all.

After looking for a while, John says quietly, “She posts a lot of you.”

“She’s a fan. All the accounts have at least one truly controversial opinion, so that they get into occasional conflict with other accounts. The Italian is in favor of bringing back compulsory figures.”[2]

Out of curiosity, John searches to see the tweets that mention @sholmes. A few of them are speculating more about John and whether he will get any choreography from him, since the official press release had only said that he would be coached by Greg, and nothing at all about Sherlock. The mentions are fewer and further between as John looks back further back, but markedly ruder.

“Heard a rumor @sholmes got fired again. Serves him right. Idk why he keeps trying to convince people to let him work with them.”

“I saw @sholmes in the background of @gollymsmolly’s Instagram working with Ph*lip and wow, I wouldn’t even wish that man on the #FlutzKing.”

“Saw @sholmes at 4CC tagging along behind Greg Lestrade like a lost puppy. If Greggy weren’t the #1 best dad then Shoelace would be living on the street.”

A picture of a teenager with a Pixie Stick arranged like a line of cocaine, straw in nostril and poised over the powder, with the caption, “@sholmes before 2014 Nats.”

John winces. If this is how people talk when they openly tag Sherlock into the conversation, how do they talk about him when they’re not expecting him to see?

“Have you seen the ones where they speculate about my relationship with Lestrade?” Sherlock says.

He doesn’t sound accusatory. He probably even thinks his tone sounds conversational. Coming from anyone else, it would. But John has rarely heard Sherlock sound this flat and tired. Of course he’s tired. After three years of seeing this level of vitriol every day, how couldn’t he be?

“Mostly they don’t ‘at’ me, as they put it, or even mention me by name. They make up words that start with the right sounds and it’s generally understood who they mean. Shellshock Homes, Sharkbait Horses. It’s sort of a contest to see who can get the furthest from my actual name and have it still be recognizable. I’m a sort of cautionary tale, you see.”

John’s throat is tight.

Sherlock still does not look up from his laptops, but his hands aren’t moving and his eyes aren’t scanning. “Oddly, the drugs appear to be the least of my crimes. More offensive is the idea that Lestrade is tolerating a notorious doper only because I am exchanging sexual favors for employment opportunities.”

John had heard the whispers about Sherlock, who had always been notoriously close-lipped about his private life, favored flashy costumes and frankly feminine choreography, and worked so closely and exclusively with an openly queer coach. If he’s honest, he can see where the idea would come from.

John tries to imagine Sherlock with someone, anyone at all, and realizes he can’t. The Sherlock he knows does not sit across someone at a coffee shop flirting over lattes, or holding hands walking through the park.

Sherlock still does not look at him. All he does is briefly shut his eyes in what could be just a long blink, if John didn’t know better.

“I have never had any sort of sexual or romantic relationship with Lestrade,” he says. It’s almost a whisper. “And I promise you, I never engaged in doping.”

John says softly, “I believe you.”

Finally, Sherlock meets his eye, and with the smallest of smiles. “I believe you do, don’t you.”

The eye contact lasts just long enough to begin to make the hairs on the back of John’s neck start to prickle. It is only broken by a ding from John’s phone. He looks down and grimaces.

“Harry.”

“Yes,” John says, opening it. “Oh boy.” The text is long, rambling, and full of typos and uncorrected autocorrects. “I should be ashamed of myself and I’m no brother of hers. Let’s see, it’s ten o’clock? Looks like she had the day shift today and started drinking just as soon as she got in the door. Lovely. You know, Sherlock, I have to say, the lack of substance abuse in this household is a major point in your favor.”

The NormaTec pants have turned off. By the time John has shucked them, Sherlock has gotten to his feet.

“I’m off to bed,” Sherlock announces.

John checks the time. “Early for you, isn’t it?”

“You should go to bed as well. Most of Lestrade’s other skaters have two weeks off now that the season is officially over, so we’re going to start really working.” [3]

Normally Sherlock would look thrilled about that prospect, but he seems strangely off. Well, they were just having an extended conversation about how most of the sport Sherlock loves despises him as a cheater. John nods.

“See you in the morning.”

John goes to bed still stuck on the idea of Sherlock with someone. His imagination has moved beyond trying to put him in cafes with pretty girls or boys and towards standing at someone’s front door, giving them a kiss good night. The image doesn’t play at all when it’s Sherlock and a woman, but a man, wiry and athletic and attractive? It’s less unthinkable.

Forget Sherlock. What’s John doing worrying about someone else’s love life? He hasn’t seriously dated anyone since...well, seriously? Never. There had been a few teenaged flings with a few girls he met through the sport. But none of them held a candle to the deep, abiding crush that had occupied the majority of John’s attentions in those days, the one that could never come to pass. He’d been so infatuated for so long that after he was free, it had taken him years to realize that time was passing him by. Even after that, there were only ever the one-night stands, the weekends off in Philadelphia, Saturday nights spent cruising bars and clubs, going home with strangers and quietly making his exit Sunday morning before they woke and making the drive home.

Does John want more? He probably should. He pictures himself in a townhouse in the suburbs, dog and spouse and two kids waiting for him, and feels nothing. What he has is enough.

That night, John dreams.

It’s the sort of dream where he knows immediately he’s in one, from the hazy quality around the edges. He’s at the rink, or he’s at _a_ rink, and he’s alone. No, wait—Sherlock is there. John can’t see him, but there is someone behind him with his broad, long-fingered hands on John’s hips, and John knows it is Sherlock even before he hears Sherlock’s deep, low, delicately accented voice.

“How do you know you’ve found the edge?” Sherlock murmurs.

John’s mouth moves without his permission. “When you’ve fallen off of it.”

They’re closer than they were in real life. Sherlock’s body is flush with John’s back. John can feel the long lines of him. At least, he can until Sherlock pushes him, and John falls, and instead of hitting the ice he falls through and keeps falling until he wakes with a start and a swooping feeling in his stomach.

———

The announcement that John Watson is coming out of retirement makes an initial bang, but eventually fades, as all off-season news does. John’s social media notifications taper off to a slow trickle. Sherlock takes John to a kindly older woman to be measured for his costumes and shows her a series of sketches that he will not let John see.

“I’m going to be wearing them,” John complains.

“I’ve seen what you wear when you choose,” Sherlock tells him, guarding the sketches protectively. “I’m not letting you onto the ice looking like you just walked out of a Marshalls.”

John opens his mouth, considers, then shuts it.

The costume designer pats his arm. “Don’t worry, darling,” she says. “You’ll look wonderful.”

“He’ll be fine, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock assures her. “Give him time to adjust.”

“I’ll do my best,” John says grimly.

John finds that the public announcement lit something in him. Telling a small circle of people that he was returning to competition didn’t quite feel tangible enough for him to believe it. Now that the world knows, it’s real. It’s happening. He throws himself into training with renewed zeal, and soon Sherlock is shouting at him less and less and he’s landing his jumps more and more.

Irene becomes a mainstay at the rink for a while, as she’s choreographing for Molly and Donovan. Her work is beautiful, and the music choices suit the athletes while still pushing the limits of what they can do.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the sense to make the interesting decisions.

“Did you hear what Anderson is skating to?” John says to Sherlock, when they are on the bus en route to the gym.

Sherlock sighs dramatically and does not look up from his phone. “Although I do my best not to notice anything that Anderson does, the strained tenor fighting his way through ‘Nessun Dorma’ is unfortunately inescapable, and the fool is using the Hugh Jackman version of ‘Bring Him Home.’”

“It’s like he Googled ‘overused figure skating songs.’ Why doesn’t he hire Irene?”

“He used her last season. She choreographed him an exquisite short that he did not deserve and never once performed with the pathos it merited. He goes through coaches and choreographers like used napkins, hoping the next one will fix him. Lestrade is a wise choice, as he has the best chance of correcting the edge on that lutz.”[4]

“Did he ever try you?”

Sherlock grimaces. “Lestrade, when he takes on new skaters, strongly recommends that they try working with me.”

“God,” says John, shuddering. “I can’t imagine what that was like.”

“It lasted a week.”

“That long?”

“It was a difficult week.”

“I’m sure Greg has a whole cluster of gray hairs dedicated to that week.”

Sherlock’s mouth curls up in the smallest hint of a smile. “He didn’t have any hairs left to go gray.”

“Of course not,” John parries. “You got to him first.”

“I certainly wouldn’t know what you mean,” says Sherlock, trying and failing to look dignified.

The weeks pass. They practice, and they train, and Sherlock keeps John up at night playing the violin and makes him eat esoteric produce. He disappears occasionally, never for longer than a couple of days, and John gets used to working on his own sometimes. He does a few interviews. Mostly he keeps to himself.

One sunny May day, when John has not seen Sherlock since two nights before, he comes home, lets himself into the apartment, and finds a strange man in a suit sitting on the sofa, looking impassively at Sherlock, who is perched in an inhuman pretzel shape on his chair.

“Um,” says John. “Guest?”

Sherlock’s eyes flick to John and then back to the visitor. His hands are pressed together as if in prayer and tucked up under his chin. “‘Guest’ implies an invitation,” he says darkly.

The man in the suit rolls his eyes, rises from his chair, and offers a hand to John. “Do forgive him, Mr. Watson,” he says. John has time to notice his fine English accent, like Sherlock’s, before the stranger says, “Our mother did her best to teach him manners, but nothing ever seemed to stick.”

“Uh. Pleasure.” While shaking the proffered hand, John looks, open-mouthed and eyebrows raised, over to Sherlock, whose expression is grim and sour.

“Mycroft Holmes,” says the man.

“I’d introduce myself, but I guess you’re already familiar,” says John.

Mycroft returns to the sofa, the better to stare down his brother. While his back is turned, John points to him and mouths to Sherlock, “There are two of you?”

Sherlock’s face twists in disgust.

“I was nearby in Colorado Springs, working on arrangements for February,” Mycroft says smoothly, “and thought I would stop by to see how my brother was faring with his new pupil.”

“A likely tale,” Sherlock growls.

“I do have better things to occupy my time with than babysitting you,” Mycroft snipes back.

“Past experience indicates otherwise.”

“I work for the IOC,” Mycroft says. “Work has been intensifying lately, with Pyeongchang approaching. My assistance liasing with the USOC was necessary, and I was fortunate enough to have a few hours off today and thought I would drop by.”

“Spy, more like,” Sherlock mutters.

“Sherlock,” John scolds, “be polite.”

“You’re fighting a losing battle, Mr. Watson,” says Mycroft. “Anyhow, I only wanted to stop by and issue my congratulations to Mr. Watson here.”

“Uh, just John is fine,” John says. “Congratulations?”

Mycroft does something with his face that might be distantly related to a smile, or perhaps just a smirk. “Why, upon your Grand Prix assignments. You should receive the text tomorrow morning.”[5]

John blinks. “I...sorry?”

“Your Grand Prix assignments,” Sherlock repeats slowly, as if explaining to a toddler.

“Yeah, I heard you just fine. How exactly do I have those, what with my total lack of a previous season to earn me them?”

Sherlock just narrows his eyes at Mycroft.

“You’re rather an unusual case,” says Mycroft. “Exceptions can be made based on history, if the argument is made by the proper people.”

“Mycroft is nearly always ‘the proper people,’” Sherlock adds.

“Please. My position merely connects me with officials across many disciplines.” Mycroft rises, buttons his suit jacket up, and fetches an umbrella that was resting against the arm of the couch. “Now, if you will excuse me, there are discussions to be had about broadcast rights for senior-level events next season.”

On his way out, Mycroft stops to nod at John. Sherlock sees this and scowls.

As soon as the door shuts behind him, Sherlock explodes out of his chair. “That interfering prat!”

“Grand Prix assignments?”

“I should have the locks changed. And a keypad. Possibly a fingerprint scanner.”

“I have Grand Prix assignments.”

“A retinal scanner, even.”

“Grand...Prix...assignments.”

John plops down onto the couch. He’d gotten two assignments his one year in seniors and done admirably, with a silver at Cup of Russia, a gold at Skate America, and a silver at the final. His realistic goals for this season had been to work his way up through sectionals and make it to Nationals, and go out for some Challenger series events to get him into international competition. The idea of skating in the Grand Prix had not even entered his brain.

Sherlock has pried himself out of his fit over his brother and is now looking at John with that “who is this idiot” expression that John is gradually becoming accustomed to. “Of course you are. We need to let everyone know you’ve arrived and properly announce our intention to make you Olympic champion.”

John looks heavenward. Sherlock still says this on occasion, and John has given up expressing the insanity of the idea. He mentioned it to Greg at one point, expecting Greg to be the voice of sense and reason. Instead, Greg had shrugged, smiled, and said, “You never know what can happen.”

“I’m surrounded by madmen,” John says aloud. “But then, I came with you, so I suppose that says something about me.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock, still clearly annoyed. “Now go shower. I could smell you coming up the stairs.”

John showers, and they eat dinner, and he goes to bed. The next morning, when Sherlock wakes him up for yoga, he checks his phone.

“Rostelecom Cup in October and NHK Trophy in November,” he says. “Lucky for me you speak Russian and Japanese.”[6]

———

Sherlock feels better than he has in years. Every day he wakes up and there is work, _good_ work, work that makes him feel alive like he hasn’t in years. It’s draining, yes, but he has his ways of coping with that. During the day, there is practice and training, and at night, there is his consulting work. He hasn’t been bored in months.

Living with John is a risk, but it is paying off. Sherlock finds it is good to have company in a way that it never has before. Living with Lestrade as a teenager had been loathsome, because it had been an exercise in being controlled. This situation, though, this exerting influence by mutual consent, is wonderful. It’s exhausting. It’s amazing.

And it’s expensive. It’s less so than it could be, since Sherlock is doing so many jobs, but there are Greg’s coaching fees, and ice time, and gym fees, and equipment, and costumes, and physical therapy, all of which has to be paid for.

But Sherlock can handle it. He takes more music editing jobs, and nutrition and fitness consulting jobs, and dips into the savings from his skate design work. And when all that fails, he steps up his other business, the one John cannot know about.

Sherlock could open the emails from Mycroft, the ones offering him nominal “work” giving anonymous feedback over the internet or writing training presentations for judges and coaches and skaters in exchange for an egregious sum of money. But he knows the hidden cost of these jobs. He weighs the cost and benefit and determines that he does not and will never need to take those offers.

There are complications to living with John. He is not unobservant, so Sherlock has to take care. He only ever texts his work contacts, never calls. No one ever came to his apartment, so that is safe enough.

And the little wooden box is under his bed at all times, where John will never, must never, see it. And Sherlock always wears long sleeves outside of his bedroom.

He likes to think that things could have gone on like this forever, if not for the demands of his feeble body.

There is a stretch of four days of solid work in mid-June. During the daytime hours, Sherlock is with John, going through their usual routine. At night, he is managing his other jobs. He sleeps for no more than an hour or two out of every 24, and eats only the bare necessities. By the fourth day, he has begun to look wan and ragged and his reactions are slowed.

John starts to look at him curiously, and finally asks, “Hey, are you okay? You look tired.”

Sherlock waves him off. “Fine.”

“Okay. I’ve got an appointment with a physical therapist after practice tomorrow, so no gym. Take a nap. You could use it.”

Sherlock has to admit that he could. He is using every tool in his arsenal to keep himself going, but at a certain point there is a wall, and he is fast approaching it. He drags himself through Thursday and into Friday. By the end of the Friday practice, there is a bright quality to the edges of his vision and every noise sounds like it’s being shouted at him through water. He is barely able to make it into the apartment, strip off his sweatshirt, and collapse on the couch.

There is something he was supposed to do before he slept, Sherlock remembers. It is fine if he sleeps on the couch for a few hours, but there was something else he was supposed to do first. What was it?

Whatever it is, the information is too slippery to hold. Sherlock lets it go as his mind blurs and sinks into a deep, dreamless sleep.

An indeterminate time later, something tugs Sherlock’s consciousness back to the surface. He wakes, but does not open his eyes. What woke him? Oh, there it is—someone’s hand is at his wrist. The hold is gentle, not tight, just lifting it up and away from his body.

In a rush, Sherlock’s eyes are flying open and he is shooting upright and grabbing at the hand holding his wrist. _His alarm._ Sherlock was supposed to set his alarm to wake him before John came home, so John would not find him asleep on the couch out in the open with his _arms bare,_ but he forgot, _idiot, idiot,_ he forgot, and now John is kneeling beside the couch with Sherlock’s forearm naked in front of him with its telltale red pinpricks at the crook of his elbow and looking not at Sherlock’s face but at that traitorous constellation on his pale skin, his expression blank and pale and hurt.

John’s mouth moves, and Sherlock wants to turn back time to before this, before he had to see John’s face before he said the words he is going to say.

“You promised me you were clean.”

* * *

 

1Jackie Wong, @rockerskating, is famous for tweeting real-time breakdowns of skaters’ performances and scores. He also runs a podcast, Ice Talk, with another sports journalist, Nick McCarvel. Following him teaches you a lot about skating and fast, as he knows more about skating than most people have ever forgotten.[return to text]

2Compulsory figures are specific shapes, or figures, carved into the ice using careful, controlled turns. They used to be a part of major competitions, and are where the name “figure skating” came from. They kept a lot of otherwise incredible athletes from achieving (Midori Ito, the true queen of the triple axel—go suck an egg, Tonya Harding—constantly struggled with them) and were just a drag to understand and watch, so they were eliminated in 1990. You can watch footage of them on Youtube, if you want to get a handle on how something can be so difficult to do and so dull to watch at the same time. If you look them up on Google Image, you can appreciate the very pretty shapes in the ice. And before you ask: yes, I have heard from reliable sources that people did use their skills to draw dicks on the ice.[return to text]

3The figure skating season technically lasts from July 1 of one year until June 30 of the following. There is a long off-season between the end of Worlds in late March/early April and the start of the major competitions in September. This is when skaters make coaching changes, get new choreography, and so on. Anderson did very badly last season and was done after Nationals, having not made it to Four Continents or Worlds, and started trying out Greg as a coach and Sherlock as a choreographer rather early. Draw conclusions as you will about why Greg might let a new skater try him out when he’s gearing his principal students up for Worlds.[return to text]

4A lutz is a jump that takes off from an outside edge, which is not the edge that you intuitively want to be taking off from. If you take off from the inside edge, it’s technically not a lutz, it’s a flip. When a skater plans a lutz and messes up the edge that badly, it’s nicknamed a “flutz,” a very cute term which I love very much. Similarly, if a skater attempts a flip and takes off from an outside edge, making it technically a lutz, it’s called a “lip.” These are much rarer than flutzes.[return to text]

5The Grand Prix series is, essentially, the World Series of figure skating. High-level skaters (we’re talking about the people who are probably going to the Olympics, in an Olympic year) can be assigned to two events and, based on the results, might qualify for the final. I’m playing awfully fast and loose by giving John GP assignments at all. Technically there’s no way he’d be assigned to a GP event, as that’s based on achievements in the previous season. But that doesn’t make for good drama, now, does it?[return to text]

6Figure skating fans, don’t @ me for not assigning John to Skate America! Non-fans and newer fans, as best I understand it, generally, skaters get a GP assignment for the competition in their country. So a Japanese skater would be assigned to NHK Trophy, a Canadian to Skate Canada, and John, an American, to Skate America. But there is Someone I don’t want John meeting who definitely needs to be at Skate America, and also if Yuri on Ice can get away with not assigning Yuuri Katsuki to NHK Trophy, then I can do what I want.[return to text]


	6. I'm Not a Bad Man, I'm Just Overwhelmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t understand,” Sherlock pleads. God, why is his voice so high and weak? Why is it breaking like this? Where has his control gone? “It isn’t like that, it wasn’t ever like that.”
> 
> “Well then _explain to me!”_ John shouts. Sherlock flinches. John stops, breathes slowly, and says, in a still, careful voice, “Explain, because I would love to hear how this isn’t you lying to me and _doing drugs_ behind my back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for drug-related stuff here, folks.
> 
> This was originally half of one chapter, but I split it into two shorter ones because it felt better that way for pacing reasons, and also because these chapters have been around 4-5k and it would’ve been about 7-8k if I kept it as one.

Sherlock’s ears are ringing. He yanks his arm out of John’s grip, clutching it protectively against his chest. “I—this isn’t—I can—”

John rises from his kneeling position and backs away. Sherlock wants to reach out and seize him before he keeps going, turns around, and walks out the door. “I believed you,” he says, sounding hollow and raw. “You promised me. And you were lying. All this time, you were lying.”

“You don’t understand,” Sherlock pleads. God, why is his voice so high and weak? Why is it breaking like this? Where has his control gone? “It isn’t like that, it wasn’t ever like that.”

“Well then  _ explain to me!” _ John shouts. Sherlock flinches. John stops, breathes slowly, and says, in a still, careful voice, “Explain, because I would love to hear how this isn’t you lying to me and  _ doing drugs _ behind my back.”

“I wasn’t—I never—” Sherlock’s head feels light. His vision is fuzzy around the edges. It’s—oh, it’s his breathing, he isn’t breathing right, it’s far too quick and shallow. He gulps in a breath and tries again. “I was never taking drugs while I was competing,” he says carefully. “It was only after I was banned that the idea occurred.”

“Okay.” John nods tightly. “So this has only been going on for three years.”

There is nothing Sherlock can say to this. He looks down at his hands.

“How often?” John has folded his arms across his chest and looking stony. His fists are clenched and his jaw is tight. “How often have you been shooting up in our apartment?”

“Not—not always.”

“Sherlock. How often.”

When did Sherlock wrap his arms around himself? He did, at some point, and now he pulls them tighter. “Every few days,” he nearly whispers. “More, sometimes.”

John is sort of...smiling, but it’s not the smile Sherlock loves, the brilliant one. It’s harsh and angry and terrible. “Here I thought you could just overcome simple bodily functions. I thought you were that amazing. But no, you were just on drugs.”

Sherlock’s throat hurts. His chest burns. His stomach is roiling.

“What are you on?” John demands. “Really. I want to know. What have you been taking?”

Sherlock closes his eyes. “Mostly cocaine,” he says quietly. “Sometimes benzodiazepines, for the comedown.”

“Jesus.” John shakes his head. A thought occurs to him, and his eyes go wide. “Sherlock,” he says, very calmly. “Tell me this isn’t where the money comes from.”

Sherlock bites his lip. “No, it’s not...I don’t sell cocaine.”

“What the fuck do you sell, Sherlock.”

Sherlock twists his hands around each other, looking into them and not at John. There’s nothing for it but to plunge in. “I don’t sell anything, exactly. Marijuana is completely legal inside of Colorado, even if it isn’t elsewhere. I assist people in making connections.”

John frowns, narrowing his eyes. “You...run a marijuana smuggling operation.”

Sherlock sighs. “More or less.” And there was the rest, what he used to do before he realized there were less base means available for supporting his lifestyle, but he cannot bear to see John’s face if he ever learns that.

“Unbelievable.” John’s eyes roll skyward. “What do you think would happen when you got caught?”

Sherlock shakes his head furiously. “I wouldn’t. I won’t.”

“You fucking might. And it wouldn’t just be a ten-year ban from your sport and a court order to go to rehab. It’d be prison, you idiot. Oh, and Greg has staked his reputation on your being innocent, so feel free to imagine what would happen to Greg’s reputation.”

_ And yours, _ Sherlock thinks with a pang of passionate self-hatred.

“What about your career? Don’t you want to compete again?”

Sherlock studies his fingernails. He had, once, briefly. He had told himself he would give it all up in an instant. He would somehow prove he had been set up and make his glorious return. But then nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen, and he dove into other sorts of work.

John’s hands are on his hips and his face is terrible, so terrible that Sherlock can’t bear to look at it, but he has to, doesn’t he? “And here I was fool enough to think you were different. You think I didn’t see enough of this at home? You really think I want to watch someone destroy themselves again?”

Sherlock squirms.

“Well, I don’t, and I won’t.”

Here it is, the moment John leaves. He’s moving now, moving past Sherlock and towards the bedrooms,  where he will pack his few things and walk out the door, and Sherlock can’t bear it, can’t live with the utter silence that John will leave in his wake.

“Wait!” Sherlock cries, reaching out and grabbing John’s arm.

John stops, turns, and looks at Sherlock’s hand with a chilling expression.

“Wait,” Sherlock repeats, more softly.

“What,” John says coldly, “do you think you could possibly say to convince me this is fine?”

There is one thing Sherlock knows that will stop him, one thing that he can give John that will keep him here where he belongs. It has been demanded of him before, but he has never had this kind of motivation. He is willing, this time, in a way he never thought he could be.

“I’ll stop,” Sherlock says.

John scoffs. “You’ll stop.”

“I...I will. I’ll find other ways.”

“For the money? Or to get high?”

“For the money. I won’t get high.”

John hasn’t pulled away and left yet, but he still looks skeptical. “I know addiction. You can’t just pick up and quit. If you don’t tackle the reason you started, you can’t change.”

“The reason I—” Sherlock stops, collects himself, and tries again. “The reason I started,” he says again, “was because I went quite abruptly from being able to do my work at the highest level to having nothing to do at all. I felt nothing. I had nothing. I needed something, and drugs were a ready option. Everyone thought I was doing them, after all, and I was going to have to go into treatment regardless, so I thought I might as well earn my stay. And then there was you, and there was work again, of a sort, but I needed to do so much else as well, and the drugs helped me focus. They made me better. But if—” Sherlock takes a deep breath and continues. “If giving that up is the price I must pay to work with you, I will pay it.”

Don’t leave. Stay.

John regards him with suspicion. He’s listening, though, and that’s something. “And the  fucking  drug smuggling operation?”

Privately, Sherlock thinks this a very dramatic way of describing what amounts to functioning as a human Match.com for ambitious potheads. “I don’t have to.” There is a small pocket of anxiety in his stomach over how he will pay for everything that needs paying, but he knows there are unexplored alternatives that he has  heretofore avoided. Mycroft, for instance. “I’ll find other ways.”

“Okay.” John shuts his eyes, inhales, and exhales. “Okay. I’m not going to say that if you do drugs again, I’ll leave.”

At hearing John say the word, Sherlock’s teeth clench and his throat tightens

“Just...let me know. I’ll help you. But if you lie to me again, Sherlock, that’s it. That’s a hard line for me.”

Sherlock forces his jaw to relax. He nods stiffly.

“I need to go out for a while. Get some air.”

Sherlock is not sure he still possesses the power of speech, but he takes the plunge. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

As John turns and walks out the door, Sherlock unwinds the tension from his body, telling himself repeatedly it’s temporary, it’s not forever, John is coming back. Sherlock must do this thing for him,  but if he does, John will stay.

———

John steps out onto the sidewalk, closes his eyes, and lets the mild evening air wash over him. His head is still buzzing, his face is flushed, and his chest feels hot and tight. Before he consciously decides to, his feet are moving and carrying him down the street.

He walks around the block, then hooks a left and walks over to the next street. His thoughts are still boiling. He can’t decide if it’s better or worse that he didn’t know for so long. After all, John has lived with addicts before and knew the whole time, and that was definitely not a positive experience. He thinks of his sister, and the drunken midnight fights, and of his father so many years before that. Perhaps it has been better not to know.

But then, knowing the kind of risks Sherlock was taking—risking himself, risking Greg, risking John, risking who knows how many other people—and keeping them in the dark about them is staggering. What’s the mandatory sentence for drug trafficking? What about aiding and abetting, which John and Greg  could very likely be charged with? John doesn’t even want to think about it. It all causes a fresh wave of anger to wash over him.

Speaking of Greg, what does he know? He’s  not stupid  and has known Sherlock for years. Surely he can’t be completely in the dark. At the thought that Greg, too, might be keeping something from him, John feels nearly sick with fury.

He takes out his phone and sends a text.

_ J: Do you have a minute? _

The reply comes quickly.

_ G: Yeah, just finished up evening practice  _ _ with some of the kids _ _. What is it? _

_ J: I  _ _ found out _ _ about Sherlock. Did you know? _

The response is a longer time coming.

_ G: Yeah. _

John has to stop, close his eyes, and breathe deeply after reading the first word of Greg’s reply. When he has his heartbeat under control, he reads on.

_ G: Want to meet up and talk about it? I’m free. _

_ J: Yeah. Where do you want to meet? _

_ G: I need to eat. There’s a bar near the rink. I’ll send you directions. _

John takes the bus to the usual stop for the rink and walks the couple of blocks to the bar. The trip helps clear his head. By the time he arrives, he knows what he is going to say, how he is going to say it, and how he is going to keep his cool as he does.

Greg is standing outside the bar...smoking? Everything John had planned to say goes out of his head.

“You smoke?” he says.

Greg grimaces. “Quit in 1999. Took it up again in 2014. Guess why.” He takes one last drag, then stubs the cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. “Come on in.”

The place isn’t too crowded, it being still early on in the night. It’s a fairly casual joint, clean and not aggressively trendy. They make their way up to the bar and Greg leans in to the bartender.

“I’ll have an old fashioned  and a burger ,” he says. “John, what are you having?”

John had been planning on picking a beer at random, but might as well take it up a notch. “Jack and Coke  and a burger for me.”

They get their drinks, and Greg hands the bartender his card and tells him to open a tab. So that’s how tonight is going. Honestly, John could use it. He hasn’t gotten out much since he came to Denver four months ago. And he hasn’t had a real drink since before that,  which means he should probably  remember to  pace himself.

They find a booth in a relatively abandoned area in the back of the bar and take their seats. Greg sips his drink. John does likewise. Best to be ready for this conversation.

Before he can open his mouth to say what he’d prepared, Greg speaks.

“I know you’re pissed,” he says. “I’d be pissed as hell if I were you.”

There is nothing to say to this, really,  so John says nothing. His pulse is picking up again.

“We tried to help him,” Greg says heavily. “His brother—have you met him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, his brother and I are about the only people on the planet who care if he lives or dies at this point. His parents dropped him after the ban.”

John’s mouth tightens. “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah. He had that mandatory rehab, right? Mycroft and I talked to him and told him there was no getting out of it, he might as well just go, play along, get out, and we’d work on proving his innocence. We thought he bought it. He seemed totally fine. Furious, but fine. The Olympics were coming up, which meant work for both Mycroft and I, but we worked it out so Mycroft could come a little late, get Sherlock to the clinic, and then fly to Russia. Night before he was scheduled to go in—which, by the way, also the night of the opening ceremony in Sochi, do that math—he gave Mycroft the slip. Thank God Mycroft managed to find him before someone else did. He was high off his tits and absolutely raving.”

“Jesus. He didn’t have to go to the hospital, did he? I never heard about anything in the news.”

Greg shakes his head. “No, Mycroft took care of it. The next day, Sherlock was bundled off to rehab. And then he did follow the next part of the plan,” he says ruefully. “He played along like the good little recovering addict. By the time he got out, Mycroft and I were both back, and he was well off the deep end. We tried everything under the sun. Mycroft offered him all sorts of skating-adjacent jobs if he’d clean up, but he wouldn’t take them. Said it wasn’t worth it. He started launching all those private ventures to fund his lifestyle.  Most of them were even relevant to his work. Not all of them, though. ”

“Yeah, he told me about his minor drug cartel,” John says.

Greg sighs. “That’s not the least of it.”

John’s frown darkens. “Sorry, there’s  _ more?” _

“Never mind. When Sherlock’s ready, he’ll tell you.”

John’s thoughts spiral. What worse thing could Sherlock have done? What is he still leaving out? What more terrible thing could he possibly be doing?

“It’s nothing that could come back to bite you,” Greg assures him quickly, seeing the look on his face. “Sherlock, yeah, for sure, but not you.”

John tucks this knowledge away to keep.

“He’s actually dialed back some since working with you,” Greg says. “If you know what to look for, you can tell when he sneaks off for a bump.”

Those moments when he would seem so bright and so clear suddenly make sense.

“He was high the entire time he worked with Sally. She clocked him just about right off the bat and fired him in an hour. Shortest job he ever had. I don’t know if Molly could tell, but they got along alright. Probably better than he has with anyone else bar you, but she wanted to try something new and switched to Irene. Anderson suspected, but put up with him because he wants to improve that badly. Not badly enough to put up with Sherlock, unfortunately. You’re the only one who’s been able to tolerate him, and you’re the only one he’s been really satisfied working with.” Greg takes another drink, this one longer. “So consider this my plea to not give up on him. He shouldn’t have lied to you, but I think he didn’t want to scare you. He wants people to think he’s good, even if he acts like he doesn’t care. And even if he thinks he’ll never skate again, there are people who disagree, and it’s been so damn great having you around to join that particular club.”

“God, of course I’m not leaving,” John says. “I mean, I told him I wouldn’t have the drugs around, and he agreed to get rid of them and quit the business.”

Greg, who had been in the middle of taking another drink, actually spits a little of it back into his glass. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Uh. He said he’d quit?”

“What the fuck?” Greg yelps. He throws his hands into the air. “I need another drink. Hang on.”

By the time he’s returned, John has  polished off his Jack and Coke.  Luckily Greg had thought ahead and gotten a second round for the both of them.

“Thanks,” says John, taking his drink.

Greg sits down again and takes what looks like a longer than necessary swig. “Okay. I’m ready. Please reveal to me how the hell you convinced Sherlock to give up the sauce where the rest of us have been failing for three years.”

“Um,” John says. “I just...told him I wouldn’t work with him anymore.”

“Jesus Christ! Do you know how many times I told him I wouldn’t let him in the rink high? Every time I actually tried it, he’d go off on a bender like to put him in a fucking coffin. Unbelievable. What a fucker. I’ll kick his ass.” Greg drinks again. “God, I hope this works.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says John.

They clink glasses and drink.

“Boy, is this going to make Mycroft’s and my job clearing his name a lot easier. And it’s a load off my back. Do you know what it’s like, not knowing if this is the time he finally puts himself in the hospital and ruins himself? Or does something even worse?” Greg shudders.

“I sure do now.” John’s mind strays back to the  “more” Greg had alluded to earlier, and he makes the conscious decision not to pick at the thought.

“Anyways.” Greg smiles at him. “It’s nice having someone else around to share the worrying about him.”

John smiles. “Thanks.”

Greg tosses back the last of his drink in one go, then says in a conspiratorial tone, “Anyways, want to hear about the time Sally slapped him?”

John leans in. “Absolutely.”

———

For Sherlock, the time passes like geologic epochs.

Once John leaves, he deflates, like all he has done for his body has failed him and it has simply given up the ghost. He sits there with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands for he doesn’t know how long. His mind is entirely, hatefully blank. The only thing inside of his brain is the repeating mantra that John is coming back, John is coming back, John is coming back.

Eventually, Sherlock remembers that John staying comes with a price, one he must pay.

He goes to his room and retrieves the little wooden box from underneath his bed and carries it into the bathroom. Inside is a metal spoon with a deep head, a bottle of saline, a pack of alcohol wipes, a collection of disposable syringes, a small plastic baggie of white powder, and an ornate pill box. Just looking at the collection makes Sherlock feel a deep, instinctive sense of longing.

Before he can think, he opens the baggie and pours the contents into the toilet. He does the same with the tablets in the pill box, then flushes, heart pounding and throat tight. Next, he goes under his bed again and comes out with a detergent bottle that rattles as he walks across the hall into the bathroom. One by one, he picks up every syringe and drops them into the bottle. He sticks the spoon in too, just for good measure. In the kitchen, he tapes the bottle shut and writes “SHARPS” in capital letters on all sides, drops the bottle into the trash, ties off the trash bag, and hauls it down to the dumpster outside the building. He lets the lid crash down. The loud bang registers as satisfying.

When Sherlock walks back into the door to the apartment, he realizes abruptly that he is absolutely famished. But when he considers actually cooking a meal, he wants to crawl right out the window and into the dumpster in the alley. He opens the fridge. There are some cold cuts and goat cheese. That will do. He rolls the goat cheese up in a slice of turkey and eats it, and then eats several more.

After Sherlock has finished, he finds that the idea of doing any kind of work, or even staying upright, is repulsive. Despite his earlier nap, he goes back to the living room, curls up on the sofa, pulls a blanket over himself, and falls asleep.

As often is the case, there are dreams, fitful and red things, convoluted and uninterpretable tangles of disparate events. Sherlock can remember little of them. Only one image stays with him: a pair of brown eyes and a voice that, despite its softness, sends chills down Sherlock’s spine.

“I did owe you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock wakes suddenly to the door banging shut, followed by quiet giggling and louder shushing. He does not stir.

“Sherlock’s asleep in the living room!” someone—John—hisses.

“Oh, shit!” says Lestrade.

Normally, Lestrade’s presence in Sherlock’s apartment has meant lengthy, tedious haranguing, but Sherlock cannot bring himself to care or to budge.

“Okay, you’re good,” Lestrade says. There’s a noise which is probably Lestrade thumping John on the back in some aggressively blokey manner. “Good night.”

“Good night!”

John shambles past the living room and down to his bedroom. Sherlock has nearly slipped back into sleep when he realizes he hasn’t heard the door shut yet. Just as this realization comes, someone settles a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Lestrade whispers. “I know what it meant to quit.”

Sherlock does not, cannot, move, nor open his eyes.

“I’m proud of you.”

The hand on his shoulder leaves, and Sherlock’s breath catches in his throat. He is just about to move, to force something past his lips, when he hears the door shut behind Lestrade.


	7. Your Heart Was an Open Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of a sudden, Sherlock’s brain switches on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEGINNING NOTES: My knowledge of cocaine withdrawal comes entirely from one series of fics (admittedly written by someone with experience) and Google, so if this isn’t entirely accurate, forgive me.
> 
> Also, for a wonderful visual of Sherlock skating, check out [the promo image](https://twitter.com/threepatch/status/1002563086065152002) for the latest episode of the Three Patch Podcast. Fox Estacado, a madwoman, rotoscoped something like 185 frames of Stephane Lambiel to turn him into Sherlock Holmes. There he is!! It’s Skatelock!! So dynamic! So powerful! So fluid! I screamed and did watch the animation for about a solid two minutes. (You should also listen to Three Patch. I'm on the latest episode talking about taking up figure skating as an adult.)

John wakes up the next morning with a dry mouth, a churning stomach, and a pounding head. He groans, rolls over, and grabs his phone. 9:00? Sherlock never lets him sleep this late. Even on days off, they’re up at seven for yoga. He rolls out of bed and immediately groans at the wave of nausea and pain. What kind of idiot goes for months with no alcohol at all and then he goes out and drinks like he just turned 21? John H. Watson, apparently.

John shambles out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. His first act is to chug a glass of water, which helps somewhat. The shower helps a little more. By the time John shuffles down the hall and to the kitchen, he feels marginally less like death warmed over. On the way, he passes Sherlock in the living room, who appears to still be asleep and wearing the Underarmor he had on when he came home from the rink yesterday.

John opens the pantry. They don’t have the stuff for his favorite hangover breakfast, which is ramen with an egg stirred in. Sherlock would never allow that much sodium into the house, let alone into John’s body. They have eggs, at least, and cold cuts and some cheese, so John decides to make a nice omelette. All they have is some weird cheese (goat, maybe?) but it’ll melt and be tasty enough.

As he is cooking, he belatedly remembers that Sherlock will need to eat when he wakes up. The polite thing to do would probably be to make breakfast for him as well, since he must feel at least as bad as John does. What can he leave for him, though? You can’t exactly reheat an omelette. And what does Sherlock even like? He usually just eats whatever he makes for John. Does he actually like that, or just eat it out of convenience? Well, all that sounds like a problem for a John Who Has Been Fed, not Hungry John.

John slides his omelette onto a plate, grabs a coconut water from the pantry, clears a spot around Sherlock’s books and papers, sits down at the kitchen table, and chows down as he scrolls through his phone. He has two texts, one from Greg and one from Mary. The one from Greg says, “How you feeling?” To which John responds, “Like hell, but I’ve had worse.” Honestly, the worst part isn’t the hangover, it’s the knowledge that he got well on the way to shitfaced with his damn  _ coach _ . His coach who is  _ Greg Lestrade _ . Although, it admittedly doesn’t feel quite as weird as it ought to, when John thinks about it. It didn’t feel like he was with his coach, more like being with...a fellow concerned family member, maybe? Like a cool, caring uncle? Either way, John wouldn’t make it a habit, but it’s not so humiliating that he feels like he can’t show his face at the rink on Monday.

The text from Mary is a reminder to post some content to his Instagram, with a few suggestions about what he could put. John wrinkles up his nose. One of the suggestions is “food,” so he takes a picture of his omelette and captions it with the “frying egg” and “licking lips” emojis.

From the living room, John hears the rustling of blankets. He hastily scrapes the last of his omelette into his mouth and goes to see how his companion is doing.

Sherlock is nominally upright. He’s pushed off the comforter he was sleeping under and is sitting up, but he’s slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. John wonders, for the first time, what cocaine withdrawal actually entails. Is it as bad as detoxing from alcohol? He witnessed that a couple times, and it was a nasty sight.

“Hungry?” John asks.

Sherlock merely shrugs.

“I made myself an omelette. Want one?”

Sherlock sighs heavily and rubs a hand over his forehead. “I find myself...famished, but I cannot fathom attempting to cook. I would appreciate breakfast.”

There is something  _ wrong _ about his voice. It’s flatter, somehow, more monotone, and less piercing in timbre. John is unsettled by it.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll do you another omelette.”

By the time he has made the omelette and returned, Sherlock has tipped sideways to loll against the arm of the couch. He rouses himself when John passes him the plate and starts shoveling the food into his mouth at an alarming rate. While he is eating, John gets onto his phone and starts reading up on cocaine withdrawal.

To his relief, he quickly discovers that it is not as medically dangerous as, say, alcohol or heroin withdrawal. The symptoms seem to be mainly psychological: anxiety, depression, fatigue, unpleasant dreams, agitation, suicidal thoughts, increased appetite. As he eyes Sherlock, John thinks that that last part is definitely in full swing.

“I have some equipment I need you to throw out,” Sherlock says, setting his empty plate down on the coffee table.

“Equipment?”

“Laptop. Phone. I let all my contacts know I was shutting down the business late last night. Now I need to get rid of the equipment.”

“You couldn’t just, I don’t know, sell it?”

“Could be traced back to me. Best to destroy it. Should take it to the dump. Lestrade can drive you.”

The short, incomplete fragments of sentences are off-putting coming from the king of run-ons. John picks up his phone to text Lestrade. The page on cocaine withdrawal symptoms is still up, and John’s eyes fall on “cravings for cocaine.”

Yeah, he’s not leaving Sherlock on day one of quitting.

“Can’t Greg take the stuff himself?” he asks, with careful casualness.

Sherlock grimaces. “Of course. You don’t want to leave me alone. I would assure you I have no plans to sneak off to find cocaine. But were I in your shoes, I would likely make the same decision.”

“Yeah.” John shrugs. “Sorry.”

Sherlock flops sideways again and gestures at the floor next to him, where an older laptop and a cracked iPhone are sitting nearly under the couch. “There it is. I don’t care how, just get it out of here.”

John calls Greg, who picks up on the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Greg. Are you free?”

“Sorry, I’m actually halfway to Colorado Springs right now. Will be there for the weekend. I’m doing a favor for a friend. Something wrong?”

“No, just running an errand. I’ll figure something else out.”

Sherlock pulls the blanket back up over himself. “Try Mrs. Hudson.”

“The costume designer?”

“The owner of the rink.”

“What? Mrs. Hudson owns the rink?”

“Yes. Try her. Her number’s in my phone.”

John tries it. She also picks up quickly. What are these people doing on a Saturday morning that they’re all available to answer a phone call this quickly?

“Sherlock, good morning, sweetheart.”

“It’s John, actually,” John says.

“Oh! John! I very nearly have your costumes finished. Just a little detail work and we’re all done. What were you calling about?”

“Um, this is weird, but...can you actually do us a favor?”

“Anything.”

John covers the mouthpiece and mouths to Sherlock, “What did you do for this woman?” To Mrs. Hudson, he says, “Could you, uh, stop by our apartment, pick up a couple things, and drop them at the dump?”

“Oh, dear, is Sherlock shutting down the business?”

John, bug-eyed, looks incredulously at Sherlock, who shrugs. “Uh, he is, actually.”

“That’s unfortunate. He did introduce me to the best people. But I suppose it couldn’t go on forever. Anyways, I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

All John can say to this is, “Thanks.”

He could throw a fit about how Sherlock’s costume designer knew about all this before he did, but there isn’t much of a point to it now.

Sherlock appears to decide that he’s done with the clothes he has on. Without sitting up all the way, he peels his shirt off over his head, baring all his pale skin and honed muscle.

Sherlock has always been circumspect about nudity, never wearing less than a 3/4 sleeve shirt and pants around John. In retrospect, that was probably to keep the track marks hidden. He’s still practically in competitive condition, since he does almost every workout that he makes John do.

John clenches his teeth and looks away.

“Mind if I put something on the TV?” he asks.

Sherlock shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me.”

John fetches the remote and turns on the TV, wondering what he is going to do with this sluggish half-Sherlock, and trying not to wonder how long this state will last.

———

Sherlock drifts aimlessly. He is bone-tired, but sleep evades him. All the same, he closes his eyes, because nothing on the other side of his eyelids feels worth looking at.

Mrs. Hudson comes by and collects the detritus of Sherlock’s business. She and John have a murmured conversation by the door that Sherlock cannot muster the desire to eavesdrop on.

He continues to lie there, floating. Perhaps the quiet white noise of the television is what is keeping him awake? If it is, too bad. He cannot possibly rouse himself to move to his bed.

Whenever he opens his eyes, John is still there, on his laptop or watching the television or in the kitchen. He leaves Sherlock food for him to eat when he can, sandwiches and fruit and energy bars and protein shakes. Sherlock does not see him clear the dishes and trash away, but he must, because it is never there when he wakes.

The longing for a hit is palpable. Sherlock can taste it in the back of his mouth. This is not the first time he has felt like this. He has crashed before, but there have always been other things to make him care less about how terrible he feels, and then the next hit to look forward to.

But he promised, and so he perseveres.

Sometimes, Sherlock drags himself to the bathroom. Sometimes, he falls asleep. When he does rest, he does so in unsatisfying spurts, punctuated with dreams he cannot remember but which leave him cold and trembling and with his heart racing. He loses track of how many of these he has before finally he decides he is finished with sleep for now, no matter how exhausted his body may feel.

At some point, Saturday turns into Sunday, because there is a prolonged period in which John is not there, and so must be in his room. Sherlock whiles away this time imagining himself contacting his dealer, acquiring a great deal of truly excellent cocaine, and getting high enough to give the world that bright quality and make his mind run like a fine engine. But the next thing he imagines after that is John’s face with the vein pulsing at his temple in the seconds before he turns and walks out the door.

Sherlock eventually picks up his phone. His heart is pounding unpleasantly in his chest and his sluggish thoughts are picking up in a way that indicate they are about to be quick and nasty, and he would like a distraction. He opens up Youtube and scrolls idly through his playlists of videos, then selects one.

Sherlock knows every one of these programs forwards and backwards. Watching them feels like slipping into a comfortable robe, which registers, even if his dopamine receptors are not quite ready to feel satisfaction. They’re mostly from the seasons he was competing, with a few more recent ones. He watches a few short programs he enjoys, then looks up Anderson’s free skate from the most recent season. He could use a laugh, but even watching Anderson stumble all over the ice can’t rouse him. When it’s finished, he scrolls down to see what the algorithms recommend.

The first suggested video below is the bronze medal winning free skate from Sochi. The name puts a tight pit in Sherlock’s stomach. He closes the app and rolls back over.

An indeterminate, infinite stretch of hours later, John is patting his arm.

“Come on,” he says, patting his arm. “It’s Monday morning. We have to go.”

Sherlock only blinks up at him.

“Look, you can come out and skate or you can just sit to the side and be catatonic, but I’m not leaving you.”

“They can’t,” Sherlock says, his voice coming out cracked with disuse and exhaustion. “They can’t see me.”

By this, he means Anderson, and Donovan, and Molly, and Irene. It’s too late for Lestrade, who has seen him like this before.

“Yeah, you’re in a right state. In that case, you’d better get in the shower.”

John pulls the blanket off of Sherlock, who in that moment hates everything with a frightening fervor. Still, John is right, so he rights himself and drags himself into the bathroom, where he takes one of the most cursory showers of his life. He does feel marginally better afterwards, clean and in fresh clothes. And John smiles at him when he sees him, which turns on a very dim light in the back of Sherlock’s mind.

“Come on,” John says. “Let’s go.”

———

“How’s he doing?” Greg says to John in an undertone as they take a break to stretch and hydrate.

Sherlock is some distance away, devouring a sandwich. John suspects it might actually be his sandwich, the one that he was planning on eating for lunch. Oh well.

“He’s just sort of...flat,” John says. “He’s either sleeping or you’d think he is just about all the time.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him do this once or twice. Before the drugs, even, he did it a couple of times. Usually right after the season ended he’d sink into a mood for a while. It’s like if you don’t fuel him up with either skating or cocaine, he putters out.”

“Puttering out” is definitely the way to describe it. Sherlock is conscious and upright, but only just. He watched John practice, but without his usual intensity. At least he had a few comments to make. John is finding he misses Sherlock’s usual blunt, if accurate assessments.

“I’m sure he’ll bounce back,” Greg says, but he doesn’t look entirely sure. “There are still over two months to go before Champs Camp. He should be properly Sherlock Holmes by then.”[1]

“Speaking of bouncing back,” John says, rather tightly, “What are you going to do when he can’t pay you with his drug money anymore?”

This was something that occurred to him somewhat belatedly, and with more than a little anger. Sherlock has been paying for John’s coaching fees, which are going to Greg, who knew exactly where the money was coming from. He has held off on fully blowing his top so far, but he’s waiting for the very good answer he’s hoping Greg will give.

“Same thing I’ve been doing,” Greg says. “I’ve been putting every red cent of it into addiction charities.”

And there it is.

“The only reason I charge him at all is because he wouldn’t let me not.”

“Of course he wouldn’t.”

“Anyways, I’ll try and think of something to give him that’ll bust him out of this.”

“Yeah,” John says slowly. He looks over at Sherlock. “Hey, I’m actually gonna take lunch. I have an idea.”

“Sure.” Greg claps him on the shoulder. “Best of luck to you.”

John moves over to Sherlock, who has finished off the sandwich. “Leave anything for me?”

Sherlock wordlessly offers him the bag. John looks inside. It contains two pieces of string cheese and a container of apple slices. Better than nothing. He takes them and chows down.

“Listen,” he says around his food, “I’ve been thinking, and we should start talking about my exhibition program.”[2]

Sherlock nods. “You’ll need one.”

“Have you had any thoughts that way?”

“I am admittedly controlling about musical choices for competitive music.” A full sentence, and a little bit of variation in his tone. Progress. “For exhibition programs, I am of the opinion that athletes should have a greater say. What would you like to skate to, given the choice?”

“Oh, wow.” John chews thoughtfully.

He’s always had some level of influence in music choices, but it’s usually of the “pick between these two” options, or “what do you think of this?” He’s never had to make the decision entirely himself, from scratch.

“I will say, however,” Sherlock adds, “that I cannot choreograph with some concepts.”

John grins. “So, no muscle suits.”[3]

Sherlock winces. “Please, no.”

John thinks. Although he does listen to music, he’s not sure he’s so attached to any of the music he likes that he could listen to it repeatedly all season. His music in 2010 had been “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. Looking back, it was a fine choice for a kid: cute, bouncy, fun, light. What would he like to skate to now? He thinks about the gala performances he’s seen in the past that he admired and enjoyed. He’s not too into Broadway, and exhibitions to the latest pop hit from the last year just aren’t his thing either.

“Actually,” John says, “you know what I like? James Bond.”

Sherlock nods.

John is already pulling up a list of Bond songs to help him think through. “Not the recent ones, though, like Skyfall or the Sam Smith one. I don’t know how good they are for skating purposes.”[4]

Sherlock only blinks at him.

“Maybe one of the Shirley Bassey songs? No, got it!” John snaps his fingers. “Live and Let Die.”

Sherlock shrugs.

“Holy shit, you’ve never heard Live and Let Die?  [ Here, let me show you ](https://youtu.be/swVoXHVW-jI) .”

John pulls up Youtube, finds a video, and cranks up the volume. Sherlock leans in to hear. By the end of the song, he’s nodding.

“Good. Dramatic, varies in tempo and intensity, neither too short nor too long. An excellent choice.”

“And I can skate in a tuxedo…” John is already fantasizing about living out all his childhood spy fantasies.

“Why a tuxedo?”

“Because—wait.” John rolls his eyes towards the ceiling. “Of course you’ve never seen a Bond movie.”

“I am peripherally aware of them,” says Sherlock.

“Okay. What do you know about Bond movies.”

Sherlock frowns. “There is a man named James Bond, and there are movies about him.”

“Seriously?”

“They are action movies.”

“They’re—okay, you know what? You haven’t been sleeping, right?”

Sherlock’s mouth thins. “No,” he admits.

“Excellent. We’re staying up all night and having a Bond marathon.”

“You need to sleep,” Sherlock argues. “Eight hours a night is paramount to—”

“I can skip a night. Don’t even argue. We’re doing this.”

“Fine,” Sherlock sighs. He hauls himself to his feet, wavering just a little. “I’m going to start thinking about the choreography.”

“Got it,” John says.

———

Skating helps.

Sherlock is able to bring himself to enough of a level of lucidity to provide some feedback, and then there is proper work for him to do. He listens to the song all the way through twice more. By the end of the second listen, he is formulating steps, placing and selecting jumps and spins. He puts on his skates and takes to the ice.

By the end of his short, cursory warm-up, Sherlock already feels more awake. He queues up the song and hits play.

The beginning is subtle, melodic. A pivot, then Sherlock moves into the choreography.  _ “When you were young and your heart was an open book,” _ balletic movements, straightforward footwork with expressive, extended arms. He begins the footwork transitioning into the first jump around  _ “in this ever changing world,” _ twizzles, a bracket, a rocker, running threes, and finally a back counter triple axel on the explosive electric guitar. His triple axels are unpredictable, and a back counter entry adds a level of difficulty that he frankly can’t handle.[5] He should mark it. Instead, he goes for it, botches the takeoff, pops the jump, and falls. He picks himself up and keeps going.

He plays through the first fast guitar section a few times, experimenting, and then runs through some ideas for the rest of the song, which are less set in stone. There is a spin going into  _ “what did it matter to you,” _ with a dramatic exit on  _ “give the other fella hell.” _ Sherlock knows he needs one other jump, on the last  _ “you know you did,” _ but he isn’t sure which he wants for it. So he does a double salchow, which is basically like not jumping at all. The last spin is a flying camel, because you could balance a level on John’s camel spin and it would be lovely.

When he has finished, he pulls out his earbuds and hears someone clapping. Molly, Lestrade, and John are off to the side, apparently having stopped practicing altogether to watch.

John cups his hands around his mouth. “Gorgeous,” he calls.

Sherlock blushes. Molly leans over to John to say something, and John grins. As Sherlock is approaching the little group, Lestrade taps Molly on the shoulder.

“Back to work,” he says, and they move to the other end of the rink.

“That’s your exhibition choreography,” John says, rather incredulously.

Sherlock shrugs. “You have better footwork now  than you used to. You can do it. What are you thinking of for the second jump? The back counter axel is non-negotiable. It will look just too good.”

“Well, then. Um, triple toe maybe?”

Sherlock makes a face.

“Fine. Anything but a loop.”

“Do your lutz. I want to showcase your consistent edge.”

“Lutz it is.” John smiles at Sherlock, whose heart does the funny flip it sometimes does when John looks at him a certain way.

Sherlock keeps working sections of the program. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Lestrade working with John, who looks excellent.

At some point, he comes out of a spin to find John standing in front of him with his hands on his hips. He takes his earbuds out.

“Hey,” John says. “We working out or what?”

The next part goes poorly.

As soon as he has put away his skates, Sherlock begins to sink. Belatedly, he recognizes the influence of endorphins on his dopamine-starved brain. Off-ice training has never given him the kind of elation that he found skating. It was always a chore, a task to be checked off, a necessary evil to empower his body to do the important things that much better.

He generally tries to do some of what he makes John do alongside him. But today, he thinks about the treadmill and wants nothing more than to be back on either the ice or the sofa.

“Hey,” John says to him. “Want to go home?”

Sherlock shakes his head. “I—you need to—”

“We’ll skip today. Won’t make a habit of it. Just today. Come on, we’ll get started on those Bond movies.”

This, to Sherlock, does not sound like an improvement, but he mutely follows John out of the rink and onto the bus, where he leans against the window and lets the jostling of the bus rattle him into numbness. His heart is pounding and he is filled with a vague, unplaceable sense of dread.

“We have to stop at the store for popcorn. Can’t have a movie night without popcorn.”

Idly, Sherlock thinks, but does not say, that it can’t be a movie night, can it, at 2:00 in the afternoon. Forming speech is too great a chore.

They go to the store and John picks up what seems like an egregious amount of popcorn and a six-pack of Miller Light.

“Look,” John says defensively, at Sherlock’s plaintive look, “I need to have something. What do you want? I’m getting you a drink. Just, like, one per movie.”

Sherlock shrugs.

“Surely you drink something.”

Sherlock shakes his head.

“Of course you don’t.” John grabs a bottle of white wine. “Cheap moscato is for freshman sorority girls. You’ll love it.”

There are implications to that remark that Sherlock suspects he should resent, but he can’t be arsed.

John pays with Sherlock’s card and they head home. As John pops the popcorn, Sherlock curls up under his blanket on the couch and tries to breathe through his rapidly fluttering pulse.

“Alright, let’s get down to it,” John says, as he comes in juggling a can of beer, a mug of what must be the wine, and a large mixing bowl full of popcorn. “Budge over.”

Sherlock sits up to make room. John plants himself next to him, pulls the blanket over them both, sets the bowl on the couch between them, and starts clicking through looking for the movie he wants.

“I want to show you Live and Let Die first,” John says, frowning, “but it doesn’t look like it’s streaming anywhere. Casino Royale it is, then.”

He puts the movie on. Sherlock takes a sip of the wine and finds it sweet with a bite to it that is initially unpleasant, but grows on him. The popcorn turns out to be heavily salted and buttered. It brings back memories of the rare occasions as a child that his parents or Mycroft would take him to a movie, which may be the last time he has had popcorn with butter and salt on it.

Sherlock still feels sort of swimmy and blank in the head, and the movie does little for him, being mostly explosions and chase scenes and card games. John keeps a running commentary going, remarking on the attractiveness of the characters and making appreciative “yeah!” sounds during the fights. It’s not perfect, but it’s all better.

Then , all of a sudden, Sherlock’s brain switches on.

His pounding heart fades into the background, and his dark, sluggish thoughts click into gear. He is aware of everything: the weight and warmth of the blanket over his legs, the taste of butter and salt on the popcorn and the way it crunches between his teeth, the engine and tire sounds from the car chase in the movie, the soft glow of the television set in the dark room, John.

He is, most of all, aware of John.

John, whose thigh is just on the other side of the popcorn bowl, whose hand brushes against his when they reach into the bowl at the same time, who is grinning like a lunatic at the action star’s ludicrous antics, who has been bringing Sherlock food when he is hungry, who has stayed with him when Sherlock has been acerbic and abrasive and refused to be cowed, who told Sherlock he wants to see him compete again and who  _ believes _ Sherlock can compete again, who adapts so wonderfully to everything Sherlock throws at him, who is here, with Sherlock, and is staying.

Sherlock is momentarily bewildered by the overwhelming rush of heat and emotion sweeping over him, until his thoughts make the short, logical leap from being hyper-aware of his current situation and proximity to John to imagining what could be, imagining John is closing the space between them, pushing the plastic mixing bowl onto the floor so their thighs press against each other, putting his hand on Sherlock’s knee, leaning in with his eyelids fluttering closed and his lips parting and—

Sherlock inhales, blinks rapidly, and refocuses onto the drivel on the TV. There is no room in his life for those thoughts.

A car explodes in the movie and John says, “Aww, yeah. So cool.”

Sherlock hums noncommittally. He is still so warm and his heartbeat is so fast.

“You’re still not impressed, are you,” John says, but he sounds more amused than disappointed.

“Action movies, not really my area,” Sherlock says. He is impressed with his ability to form words when he feels like his insides are steaming.

The movie wears on, and John’s comments taper off. Sherlock burrows into the blanket and doesn’t think about John’s voice, or John’s hands, or John’s smile. As he drifts off into blissful sleep, he endeavors to think about absolutely nothing at all.

* * *

 

1Champs Camp is a week-long intensive for all U.S. figure skaters assigned to a Grand Prix series event. It happens right before the season starts. They do their programs for judges who will give them feedback, and also attend various sessions and seminars on nutrition, mental preparation, and so on, and it all culminates in a simulated competition. USFS also gets some  [ fun PR videos ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6U4ipi3WNM) out of it.[return to text]

2There are, essentially, three types of programs a skater does. Two are done in competition: short programs/short dance, and free skates/free dance. Then there are also exhibition programs, which are completely for fun. They are done during galas, which happen after a competition is over, and usually feature the top few skaters from the competition plus anyone else the host felt like inviting. Exhibition programs have no requirements for what you can and can’t do, which means they can range from  [ beautiful and ethereal ](https://youtu.be/1gRoIy0YWQo) to  [ utterly baffling ](https://youtu.be/Uyva23_wyVE) and  [ everything ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5tq8iJytF8) in  [ between ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp9woF5Cn7s) . Adam Rippon at the most recent Grand Prix Final came out and just  [ sang ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXHYV-BS3y8) for the first half of his. (This was after NHK Trophy, where he did just come out, sing, and leave, but the ISU told him he had to actually skate during his exhibition program.)[return to text]

3Another genre of exhibition program is the detestably tacky,  [ demonstrated here ](https://youtu.be/ogpwrc6oCKM) by Evgeni Plushenko, a demon.[return to text]

4John Watson is the most incorrect man in the world, and  [ here is a Japanese teenage girl ](https://youtu.be/nuUldsiBFmQ?t=1m58s) to explain why.[return to text]

5Triple axels are troublesome for even the best jumpers, and are the only jump with a forward entry. They also have an extra half a rotation, so a double is two and a half rotations rather than two, and a triple is three and a half. Skaters usually enter them  [ with a mohawk ](https://youtu.be/GBWLP-iDUqg?t=5s) , which is more or less going backwards on one foot, then stepping forward onto the foot you’ll jump off of. Controlling the edge when you come into an axel off of a turn executed on one foot is, as you can imagine, significantly more difficult. Here is my beautiful Japanese husband  [ demonstrating repeatedly ](https://youtu.be/msl-POwFB78?t=10s) .[return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism is welcome! Most especially because this chapter got a little less than the usual editing work.
> 
> Sorry for the longer wait! My day job is picking up big time lately, but it should ease up after the end of next week. Then I'm moving several states over, but then I'll have quite a lot of free time!


	8. Perfection is Letting Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This isn’t the Sherlock he knows at all. This is someone else, the Black Swan herself perhaps, and that’s why John’s heart is in his throat and his skin is tingling like a weak current is running over it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for talk of past sex work in this chapter.

Some weeks on, Sherlock is very nearly himself again.

He hauls himself up and to practices. He finishes John’s exhibition program and John learns it. Gradually, he moves from being supine on the sofa to upright and with his laptop open, working on projects. One time, John sees him in some art program and with a tablet in his hand, sketching something that looks like a boot.

“What’s that?” he says, leaning over.

“Consulting job,” Sherlock says shortly.

John recognizes a brush-off when he sees one, and lets him be.

Sherlock’s brain seems to come back online at practices, and his feedback regains most of its acidity. Greg balances it out with a steady stream of encouragement, because John is fairly sure he actually looks pretty good. He feels good. There are occasional bad practices, but most of the time he is landing all of his jumps and not ending up on his rear.

All the same, Sherlock can’t seem to resist tweaking both programs. A few weeks before Champs Camp, Greg cuts him off.

“After you come out of your sal-toe combination,” Sherlock says, when John has finished a run-through of his free program, “could we try—”

Greg throws his hands in the air. “No! We will try nothing! Everything is great! Stop touching things! You can play with it more after Champs Camp, once we’ve gotten feedback.”

Sherlock pouts. “Well, let’s at least work through it.”

All the same, there are still spells of lethargy, where Sherlock stares bleakly at nothingness. John tries to be with him during those times, although it’s sometimes like trying to interact with a blank wall.

There is a definite moment one day where Sherlock says, “We need to go to the store. We’re nearly out of kale,” and John smiles at him and says, “You can go.”

Sherlock looks startled, and then relieved. He fetches his wallet, phone, and keys, and leaves. The whole time he is gone, John tries to distract himself and to not think about Sherlock going wherever he went to meet whoever he met to trade a few bills for a little plastic baggie. But Sherlock comes back in a reasonable timeframe with nothing but the few groceries they needed. John watches him to see if there was anything he missed, but Sherlock never disappears only to return bright-eyed and manic.

From that point on, Sherlock resumes his Sunday afternoon shopping trips, and John resumes his Sunday afternoon naps.

One Sunday, he wakes to the sound of the door opening, rolls halfway over, and mumbles, “Hey, Sherlock, could you—Jesus Christ!”

“Not exactly,” says Mycroft Holmes, as he smoothly takes a seat in the armchair.

John sits up and instantly regrets sleeping with his shirt off. He pulls the blanket up to his chest, feeling like a self-conscious girl. “You have a key?”

“For emergencies. The landlady and I have an understanding.”

“Interesting what you’re counting as an emergency,” says John.

“I thought we should have a few words concerning my brother.”

“Hmm.” John frowns in mock thought. “If only there were some way to talk to someone without being in their physical presence. Some sort of device, maybe, that throws your voice across miles and miles so that another person can hear it.”

Mycroft gives him a sour look and glosses over John’s sarcasm. “I understand that Sherlock has made some lifestyle changes of late.”

“He has, yeah.” John feels a little spark of pride at the thought.

“That is highly encouraging,” Mycroft says, not looking the least bit encouraged. “Nevertheless, I would continue to monitor him closely.”

“I had actually figured that out.”

Mycroft purses his lips. “Sherlock has made previous attempts to...cut back. This is admittedly the first time he has shut down his major business operation. Consider me impressed.”

“You look just thrilled.”

“However,” Mycroft continues, “he has, in the past, resorted to other...extracurricular activities in order to support his lifestyle.”

There is a lump in John’s throat. Greg had mentioned there had been something else, something he said Sherlock should be the one to tell him about.

Mycroft must see something in his face, because he arches one eyebrow and says, “He hasn’t told you, then. Hmm.”

John just shrugs.

Mycroft examines his nails. “When he was deprived of other resources, Sherlock resorted to visiting various nightclubs and...exchanging certain favors to get what he wanted.”

The floor drops out from underneath John’s feet.

Cocking his head and narrowing his eyes, Mycroft continues. “Generally it’s his favorite thing to fling in the face of anyone who tries to clean him up. ‘I’ll just get what I want from someone else,’ and the like.”

John flinches.

“Curious that he didn’t mention it to you. With Mr. Lestrade and I, he does so like to weaponize his body.”

John’s jaw is clenched tight. His mind is flooded with unwelcome images that put an uncomfortable pit in his stomach. Sherlock tipping his head back as someone kisses down his long, slender throat. Sherlock’s body, pressed up against the wall of a bathroom stall.  Sherlock on his knees in front of a stranger who is opening his fly and—

“Is that all?” he says to Mycroft.

“Well,” Mycroft says, “I did have a favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“As you know, my brother and I are not on particularly friendly terms.”

John snorts.

“As such, it is challenging to be involved in his life,” Mycroft goes on. “It would be ever so helpful to me if you and I exchanged numbers and you kept me apprised, as it were.”

“Um,” John says. “You want me to spy on him for you?”

“‘Spy’ is such an indelicate term,” says Mycroft. “And I think you would find it rewarding, if you follow.”

John follows. “Yeah, no thanks.”

Mycroft smiles like the Cheshire cat. “I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“No need. Done here?”

“I would like to wait for my brother, if you don’t mind.”

As a matter of fact, John does mind. But he sighs, and says, “Can I offer you anything to drink?”

“A cup of tea would be excellent, thank you.”

John’s mind is still racing as he fixes their tea. Sherlock is so distant that he had simply assumed he was one of those athletes who thinks sex will sap the energy they could be using for sport. This revelation, which he has to admit he saw coming, has opened the floodgates of his imagination. Sherlock is beautiful; anyone with eyes could see that. But he was beautiful like a baroque painting in a museum: expensive, untouchable. As it turns out, though, he isn’t untouchable at all. He has been touched. The thought, for reasons he can’t quite put his finger on, enrages him. He sets that aside to examine later.

John and Mycroft are just sitting down with their respective cups of tea when Sherlock walks back in the door carrying several grocery bags. Upon seeing his brother, he unceremoniously drops them onto the floor.

“John, did you get a second roommate while I was out?” he says through gritted teeth.

“We could change the locks?” John offers.

“He finds a way,” Sherlock growls.

He goes to the living room, swipes the mug of tea that Mycroft was just reaching for, sits down next to John, and glowers.

“Mycroft wanted to check in,” John says in a deliberate, neutral tone.

“Of course he did.”

“I wanted to issue my congratulations on your recent sobriety,” Mycroft says. “Mummy and Daddy will be pleased.”

Mummy and Daddy? Goodness. John knew they were posh, but he didn’t know they were  _ that _ sort of posh.

Sherlock scowls. “They only believe what they read in the papers.”

“They’ll believe me.”

“Only if you tell them.”

“More business in Colorado Springs, Mycroft?” John interrupts.

“Colorado Springs and then to Moscow. This business with the Russians is quite thorny, and the ROC is growing increasingly hostile. My presence has been requested as an intermediary.”

“Mycroft has had friends in Russia since the Cold War,” Sherlock says as an aside to John.

“Yes, I had contacts in the USSR from the tender age of four,” Mycroft says dryly. He rises from the chair and does up the button on his suit jacket. “If you’ll excuse me, I must be getting back to work.” He nods to Sherlock. “I am pleased to see you looking so well.”

When Mycroft has turned to leave, Sherlock puts his middle finger up at his brother’s retreating back. As soon as the door shuts, he says, “That interfering bastard!”

“I could do without the letting himself into our apartment,” John admits.

Sherlock jumps to his feet, nearly sloshing his tea out of the mug. “‘Pleased to see you looking so well,’” he parrots. “Nosey git. He just wanted to see me for himself. I’m telling Lestrade he’d better stop reporting on me. Has he gotten to you yet?”

John flushes. “Um.”

“Did you agree?”

“No!”

“Pity. Next time, take him up on the offer. We can split his fee.”

Sherlock downs his tea, stomps over to the kitchen, and goes about putting the groceries away. Some minutes later, John realizes he still has not looked away from him. When he finally does, it is with a sort of ripping sensation that he does not care to think too hard about.

———

In the little changing room in the back of Mrs. Hudson’s tailoring shop, John holds up his free skate costume. It’s a lot more…more than what he’s used to, but it fits the music. The “Heroes” costume is a little closer to what he’s used to, so he puts it on first and looks himself over in the mirror.

The bottom is a pair of standard, straightforward black pants. The shirt is the interesting part: asymmetrically cut and not skin tight, made of a light fabric that will flow nicely as John skates. One side is black and one side is white, and in the middle the two are slashed together. There are a few small crystals scattered over both the front and the back.[1]

John puts it all on and throws open the curtain. Mrs. Hudson claps her hands together and Sherlock nods approvingly.

“Isn’t that just lovely,” Mrs. Hudson says.

“It has nice movement,” Sherlock says. “John, what do you think?”

John puts his hands on his hips. “Nice, I guess? I’ll be able to move in it just fine.”

Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock exchange an exasperated look.

“Show us the other one,” Sherlock says.

“Okay,” John says doubtfully.

He returns to the dressing room, sheds the first costume, and puts on the second. The pants on this one are more or less identical to the other costume’s. The shirt, though, is dark red and slit far down in a deep V, bridged by a strip of nude fabric adorned with a few sprays of lace. There are sequins in swirling patterns down the back. John pulls it all on and is forced to admit he does look good. The sleeves are loose, sheer, and gathered at the wrist. The part over his body is made of the same sheer fabric, but it’s lined with material in the same color to make it opaque.[2]

“I actually like this one,” John says as he comes out.

Mrs. Hudson gasps. Sherlock says nothing. He is looking at John, yes, but he’s not speaking. John nervously smooths down the front of the shirt.

“Oh, God, you hate it,” he says.

Sherlock shakes his head.

“Show us the back,” Mrs. Hudson says. John turns around and Mrs. Hudson nearly squeals. “Oh, hurray! The sequins on the back gave me such a bother. It looks so attractive on you, though, and it’ll be fetching under the bright arena lights.”

“Mm,” Sherlock assents. He is staring somewhere just south of John’s face.

“I’ll go change out of this and we can head home,” John says.

All the way home, Sherlock says very little, and John cannot shake the unplaceable feeling it gives him.

———

In the downswings, Sherlock has discovered that managing his social media accounts is still within his power. When all he can do is lie on the couch under a blanket, he can still scroll Twitter.

At this point in the off-season, now that the ice shows are finished, it is fairly quiet with the fans. The athletes are posting teases, pieces of programs they’re willing to release. A Japanese skater is making noise about attempting a quad axel. Everyone and their mother is skating to  _ Moulin Rouge _ , and they don’t seem to have realized it’s about to be the new  _ Phantom of the Opera _ . A Russian coach has a girl skating in juniors who has two quads, while another of her skaters is retiring at the tender age of 18 for health reasons. All in all, the usual.

One tired Thursday evening, Sherlock finds himself reading a quote before he realizes who it is from and who it is about. By the time he does, the hairs on his arms are standing on end.

That is all for Twitter that night.

The next day, when Lestrade sees him, his mouth is in a thin line. While John is warming up, he approaches him.

“You heard?” Lestrade says grimly.

“Yes.”

Lestrade shakes his head. “A five quad free skate?”

“It’s a risk, given his track record for consistency, but he could do it.”

“I didn’t see any information about which ones.”

Sherlock sighs. “We know he has sal, toe, and flip. He could conceivably do five quads in a program with only those. However, his coach has alluded to working on more. It can’t be the lutz; his lutz is too inconsistent. He doesn’t have the base to get the extra rotation. If he learned the quad loop, he could manage two programs with no lutzes at all. I could easily see him doing a quad loop instead of a triple lutz.”

Lestrade smiles. “You know, you’re a hell of a skater, but boy, you’re dead useful on a coaching team.”

Sherlock blushes.

“Anyways, I have to go work Molly’s short.”

As Lestrade leaves, John stops in front of Sherlock. “Okay, I’m ready. What was that about?”

“Nothing,” says Sherlock, as he makes the conscious effort to relax the tension that had built up in his shoulders. It takes longer to release the knot in his gut.

Sherlock has managed somehow to go three years without personally encountering the man who ruined his life. He has seen him compete onscreen, even watched the carefully crafted interviews he gives. Afterwards, Sherlock always has trouble shaking the feeling that those dark, glittering eyes were staring straight through the camera lens and into him.

“I’m really looking forward to this season,” he had said, in one of his patented, practiced soundbites. “I’m proud of what I did in Sochi, but I know I can do even better. I’m looking forward to showing everyone what I am capable of.”

With a chill down his spine, Sherlock thinks that he personally knows exactly what that man is capable of.

———

A week before Champs Camp, Sherlock has a stretch of three days in which he spends every moment they are home on the couch.

On the third day, John can’t stand it any longer. After they’ve been home for a few hours, he comes out in his skating gear and pats Sherlock on the side.

“Up. Come on.”

Sherlock gives him a blank look. “What for?”

“We’re going out.”

“Where?”

“Pizza.”

That awakens him partway. Sherlock takes in a deep breath to launch into what John knows will be a lengthy diatribe about fats and carbs, so John cuts him off.

“I haven’t had pizza in an age and I’m dying. I want some grease.”

Sherlock shuts his mouth and sulks. “Well, I’m not riding on the bus.”

“You want to walk two miles to this pizza place, be my guest. When you get there, I’ll be the one with half a pizza in my mouth.”

They squabble all the way down to the street, and eventually take an Uber. Angelo’s, the pizza place, is bare-bones with minimal decoration and sparsely populated. John orders himself two slices of something with about five different kinds of meat on it. Sherlock makes a pained sound.

“What do you want?” John asks.

Sherlock shrugs. “I don’t know.”

In an expression John is becoming very used to, he rolls his eyes. “Let me guess. You’ve never had pizza before.”

“I’ve had flatbreads. That’s more or less the same thing.”

“Oh my God. Which one looks the best to you?”

Sherlock grimaces. “Comparatively, that one.” He points to a pie that appears to be Greek, with feta, black olives, and spinach on it.

John orders him a slice of the Greek pizza and a slice of double cheese, because Sherlock’s not getting out of this without trying a normal pizza. He takes his, hands Sherlock the other plate, and finds them a table. Sherlock regards his pizza with skepticism.

“The toppings don’t look particularly secure,” he says.

“If you’re not sure, fold it in half, like this, and eat it that way.” John demonstrates and then takes a bite. “Mm.” He shuts his eyes and tips back his head as he chews. “God, that’s good.”

Sherlock folds his pizza, takes a small bite, and chews thoughtfully. “Oh,” he says after a moment. “That’s very good.”

“It’s extremely good. You know what they say about bad pizza, right?”

“No?” Sherlock says quizzically.

John grins. “Bad pizza is like bad sex: still pretty good.”

“Hmm.” Sherlock considers this. “I would have to increase my sample size of pizza to determine the veracity of that hypothesis.”

John nearly chokes on his pizza laughing. Sherlock smiles a little at him, though, and that makes it worth it. “Okay, take this particular pizza,” John says. “Rank it on a scale of the worst sex you’ve ever had to the best.”

Sherlock cocks his head. “What are we considering sex?”

Suddenly, John remembers what he knows about Sherlock’s prior experience, and suddenly, this conversation is a lot less fun. He chews his pizza to buy time as he scrambles to find an exit. Sherlock, though, takes this as an opening.

“Most people’s standard for virginity is engaging in penetrative intercourse,” he says. “By that metric, I’ve never ‘had sex,’ so to speak. But why call the other acts names like ‘oral sex’ if they’re not ‘real’ sex?”

Oh God, there’s no way out. John’s mind has gone completely blank with panic.

Sherlock carries on, talking around a mouthful of pizza. “I would say it’s well on the upper end. Certainly better than, say, eighty percent of the sex I’ve had?”

All John can think, wildly, is that the pizza isn’t even that good.

Sherlock swallows his pizza and looks up, and John sees in his eyes the moment that he realizes John knows. His face just sort of...falls.

“Ah,” he says softly. “Mycroft told you.”

“I’m sorry,” John blurts. “I didn’t go looking for it. I know that doesn’t make it better, I know it’s information you should control. He just told me.”

“Of course he did.”

Sherlock’s earlier slight uptick in energy has faded. He is visibly sinking. John wants to scramble in after him and haul him to the surface.

“It doesn’t change anything,” John says. “You’re still…”

He’s still what, exactly? What is Sherlock? His coach, yes. His roommate. A gifted athlete. But there’s more to him than those words capture. If you’d asked John a couple of months ago, he might have used one of those obvious descriptors. But so much has happened since then.

Abruptly, John knows how to describe their relationship. It’s obvious, really, so much so that he can’t believe he was ever unsure. He’s sure now. The anxiety has evaporated, and he knows exactly what to say.

John smiles. “You’re still my best friend.”

Sherlock stops chewing. He blinks, staring.

John’s smile widens into a grin. “You okay there?”

Sherlock swallows. “I,” he says. “I’m your best…”

“Friend, yes.”

Sherlock looks down at his pizza. “I’ve never had a best friend before,” he says, sounding slightly awed.

At some point, the energy between them shifted, and John is only just noticing it. It’s heavier, thicker, more profound. The weight of it is uncomfortable. John clears his throat.

“Finish your pizza. There’s something else I want to do tonight.”

———

By the time they have stopped by the apartment to get their things and arrived at the rink, it is closed for the night.

John throws up his hands. “Well, hell.”

“I’ve got it,” says Sherlock.

“You’ve…”

Sherlock is kneeling by the door, taking a few small tools out of his back, and fiddling with the lock. John rolls his eyes.

“Of course you can pick locks.”

“I learned on this door specifically, so I could have more solo ice time. There’s supposed to be an alarm, but the rink manager never turns it on.” The lock clicks and Sherlock pushes the door open. “And there it is.”

“You’re a man of many talents,” says John. Sherlock looks back at him and grins.

Inside, it’s completely dark. John pulls his phone out and turns the flashlight on.

“Did you also find the light switches?” he asks.

“Not in here, but I know where they are in the actual rink area. Come on.”

Sherlock has to pick the lock on the booth in the arena, but he gets it open without a hitch. He throws the lights, which come on with a low hum.

“Come get your skates on,” John says from the bench.

Sherlock joins him, and they get out their bags and start lacing up their skates.

“We’re not here to practice,” John says. “We’re here to have fun. What do you like to do when you’re skating just for fun?”

Sherlock frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Like, think back to when you were a kid. Why did you start skating?”

“Because puberty made Mycroft too fat to skate. I was three.”

“Okay,” John says slowly, “well, what part of skating do you love the most?”

“Hm.” Sherlock taps his skate against the ground. “I love to just play. It’s why I like to choreograph so much. There’s the opportunity to experiment until I find something that works.”

“Is that it?”

Sherlock is quiet for a moment, staring out at the ice, as he thinks. “Performing,” he says quietly, after a long time. “I liked the moment that everything I worked on came together in front of the world, and I have only one chance to do it perfectly or not. It was...good.”

“Yeah.” John smiles. “It is.” It will be again. “So, let’s freestyle, and then you can perform.”

Sherlock looks as if he is about to open his mouth, perhaps to protest. But he decides against it.

“Give me your phone,” John says. “I’ll put on that wild playlist of yours.”

Sherlock hands him the phone and John picks  [ a Beatles song ](https://youtu.be/vdvnOH060Qg) for them to warm up to. Sherlock, he knows, is a stickler for warming up. But to John’s surprise, he only skates two or three laps before his movements dissolve into footwork. 

John had been planning on maybe doing just a little practicing while they were out here, but he finds that he can’t look away from Sherlock. His movements are fluid, committed, and in time with the music. Of course Sherlock commits fully to musicality even when he’s just improvising.

The next song is a cover of  [ Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” ](https://youtu.be/LRP8d7hhpoQ) that John isn’t familiar with. John tries to keep skating through it, but barely a minute in he has to stop just to watch.[3] Sherlock’s spiral and Biellmann spin aren’t quite as high as John knows he can get them, but they’re still breathtaking. When Sherlock comes out of his last spin with his arms raised towards heaven, John grins and applauds.

The next song that comes on is Nicki Minaj. John doubles over laughing.

“What?” Sherlock shouts defensively. “It’s percussive!”

Wheezing with laughter, John crumbles from doubled over to kneeling on the ice, then sitting down altogether. “It’s Sir Mix-a-Lot!”

“It’s a sample!”

John takes a deep breath, giggles again, nearly loses his composure, collects himself, and gets to his feet. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“I  _ like _ it,” Sherlock says, pouting.

“While I would love to see exactly how you move to this particular music,” John says, “I would much rather see that performing you talked about.” He smiles. “What will you be performing for us today, Sherlock Holmes, world champion?”

There are two spots of color on Sherlock’s cheeks. John can’t be sure if it’s the cold or the exertion or something else. Whatever it is, they highlight the angular bone structure of his face in a way that’s...rather pretty.

“There’s a track that’s just labeled SP1314,” he says. “Play that one.”

John nods and goes to where the phone is plugged into the audio system. By the time he has cued up the music, Sherlock has assumed a starting position with one foot behind the other and his arms slightly back and out. John hits play.

The music is immediately familiar, and John realizes what Sherlock is performing. It’s his short program from that final season, the one he won a spot on the Olympic team with.  _ Swan Lake _ is probably the warhorse to end all warhorses, and nowadays everyone uses the cuts from the score to  _ Black Swan, _ so even that isn’t a unique choice. But 2013 was before all that. This, what Sherlock is skating now, is the original.[4]

The music starts quietly: an oboe over soft strings. Sherlock’s movements are similarly subdued as he raises his arms, winglike, and rises up onto his toe picks to make a few tiny, balletic steps, before sailing away from the center of the rink. As the music swells into that most recognizable melody, Sherlock steps and leaps into a triple axel.

John gasps. It’s not the best axel he’s ever seen—he’s done better himself, and the landing is far forward enough that Sherlock nearly loses his balance—but there is an element to it that makes it impossible to look away from. It’s a sort of recklessness, as if Sherlock has done this a hundred times and it’s not even worth his full attention.

Sherlock steps out of the axel directly into twizzles, and then into a complicated transition. John catches glimpses of his face. The pathos is a startling contrast to his usual standoffish, brusque demeanor. John finds himself drawn into the story in a way he didn’t expect to be.

The transition into the next element is smooth enough that John is actually surprised when Sherlock turns in a clear preparation for another jump. The first is a salchow, and John holds his breath as Sherlock rotates four times, comes down clean, and jumps again, a triple loop this time. He wants to shout, to applaud, but he’s afraid to break the spell.

With his head held high and arms aloft, Sherlock is ethereal. He is only wearing sweatpants and a thin T-shirt, but he sparkles as if he were wearing thousands of crystals. He steps, turns, flies into a spin that John can’t even track, it’s that fast. Sherlock throws himself out of the spin as the music changes, crashes into something more aggressive. His movements are different now, less elongated and graceful, more sharp and angular. He turns backwards and John’s breath catches in his throat as he wonders if Sherlock will—will he dare—

The quad lutz is the cleanest jump so far, timed perfectly with a crash in the music, high and fast and covering practically the entire width of the rink. John shouts without even meaning to do it.

Sherlock dances over the ice with seeming ease, although whenever he sweeps past John, John is struck by the power he brings to every movement. He forgets things like form and technique and loses himself in the performance as Sherlock embodies the character.

Maybe that’s why John feels the way he does watching him. This isn’t the Sherlock he knows at all. This is someone else, the Black Swan herself perhaps, and that’s why John’s heart is in his throat and his skin is tingling like a weak current is running over it.

Sherlock flies past him and this time, he looks directly at John as he passes. John feels his face flame up from the heat in his eyes. Sherlock breaks it by turning the other direction and leaping into a high Russian split jump and then finally, he makes his way to center ice, kicks his back leg behind him in a high illusion and drops into a layback spin, then grabs the blade of his free leg and pulls it up, up, up, and over his head. As the final note resounds, he whirls about with a pivot, throws his arms and head dramatically back, sinks to his knee while extending his other leg in front, and then dives forward, flinging arms and head  [ down over his leg ](https://californiaballet.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/swanlake1.jpg) .

The music stops. Sherlock sits up and gets to his feet. John, meanwhile, cannot bring himself to move.

“That isn’t the best I ever did that,” Sherlock is saying as he skates over. “The landing on the axel was clearly messy, and I couldn’t remember some of the footwork in the step sequence and had to improvise. I also didn’t get enough rotations on the second position of the sit spin, so—”

“Don’t give up on competing again,” John says.

Sherlock stops up short. “I...sorry?”

John takes a deep breath, then tries again. “I’ve never in my life seen anything like that up close,” he says. “No, it wasn’t perfect, but it was...something else.” He smiles. “You’re something else.”

Sherlock blushes bright pink. Something in John’s chest swells at the sight.

Sherlock is just opening his mouth to say something when there’s a rattling sound from out in the lobby, over by the doors. Sherlock’s eyes go wide.

“The alarm,” he says.

“You said it was off!”  
“They must’ve put in a silent alarm.” Sherlock grabs John’s arm. “Run for the back door!”

They scramble off the ice and furiously gather up all their things.

“Our skates!” John hisses.

“There’s no time! Put the guards on. We don’t need to get far. Hurry!”

They dash for the fire escape, skates still on and protected by the hard plastic skate guards. They bang through the door just as the voices of policemen come closer.

There is a dumpster in the alley behind the rink. Sherlock runs around behind it, still moving awkwardly. He starts unlacing his skates.

“If you get me arrested a week before Champs Camp, I’ll kill you,” John whispers as he rips laces out of eyelets.

They get their skates off and into bags and shoes on. Sherlock straightens.

“They should be occupied looking round the rink for long enough that we can just leave,” he says, as the back door opens and a flashlight beam shines around the alley.

“Shit!”

“Follow me!”

They take off running, this time unhindered by skate blades. There is a shout from behind them, but they don’t stop.

John follows Sherlock’s lead as they emerge from the alleyway onto the street, and then back down another alleyway and onto another, busier street, then merge with the crowd. Sherlock nods to a bus that’s pulling up to the curb.

“Get on,” he says.

They climb on board, take their seats, and look out the window in time to see two uniformed police officers looking down both sides of the street.

As the bus pulls away from the curb, John glances sideways at Sherlock. The corners of his lips are turning up, and he is quietly shaking. John giggles, snorts, covers his mouth, and laughs even harder, and soon they’re both laughing, laughing so hard that John has to lean forward onto the seat in front. Sherlock leans back, covering his entire face with his hands as he laughs hard enough that he’s wiping away tears.

As the laughter dies down, John looks over at Sherlock again, still grinning. Sherlock grins back, and that same warm something swells in John’s chest.

* * *

1There are three sources of inspiration for this costume:  [ Mikhail Kolyada ](https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/mikhail-kolyada-of-olympic-athlete-from-russia-competes-during-the-picture-id918834990?s=612x612) ,  [ Joshua Farris ](http://joshfarris.figureskatersonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Josh-FS.jpg) , and  [ Max Aaron ](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BjyMczmUl_s/maxresdefault.jpg) . You can more or less (hopefully) tell which elements I stole from which costume.[return to text]

2This costume is nearly 100% a slightly modified  [ Daisuke Takahashi ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d1/e4/60/d1e460b8c0f6adc262546f79ff011dae.jpg) getup in a different color.  [ Here it is in motion ](https://youtu.be/wADNSJmM-ts) , where you can get a bit of an idea of how it sparkles, although video frankly can’t capture how much skating costumes sparkle under arena lights.[return to text]

3I don’t have a visual for you to imagine what Sherlock looks like skating to Happiness is a Warm Gun, but I have one for Hallelujah. It’s  [ this Sasha Cohen exhibition ](https://youtu.be/ulcIvIQ8LkE) . What, Songlin? Even the spirals? You bet your ass even the spirals. (Sorry that whoever’s running the camera has decided we don’t need to see a skater’s fucking feet.)[return to text]

4If you’re looking to get an idea of the sound, try  [ Alina Zagitova’s short program ](https://youtu.be/28kN3YvbUjk)  and  [ Kaetlyn Osmond’s free skate ](https://youtu.be/wU5WTkLi3ms) . Additionally, although it’s totally irrelevant to this scene, if you would like to picture Sherlock’s costume from when he competed with this program, I’m picturing something between that costume from Kaetlyn Osmond’s free skate and Johnny Weir’s famous  [ Swan costume ](https://jessruhlin.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/johnny-weir-8.jpg) . Yuri on Ice fans, you may  [ recognize ](http://thegeekiary.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Johnny-Weir.png) that second costume! I went on a “swan marathon” to get an image of some of the movements. If you’d like to follow me into it (after you finish reading, naturally), I watched  [ Rudy Galindo ](https://youtu.be/0lH9mg_ZneA) ,  [ Johnny Weir ](https://youtu.be/d3frkW4f7ok) ,  [ Yuzuru Hanyu ](https://youtu.be/1gRoIy0YWQo) ,  [ Alina Zagitova ](https://youtu.be/28kN3YvbUjk) ,  [ Kaetlyn Osmond ](https://youtu.be/wU5WTkLi3ms) ,  [ Oksana Baiul ](https://youtu.be/9kLH9oRQcLc) , and  [ Sasha Cohen ](https://youtu.be/hSX_OZ_ppig) .[return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delayed update! I had a big move, and then a lot of craziness, but updates should be back to the usual rate (tentatively faster, even?) now that I'm mostly unpacked and settled in.
> 
> Next time: Champs Camp, where John and Sherlock must contend with... _other people._
> 
> Also, as a fun figure skating side note, the real life figure skating world keeps supporting the ridiculous stuff I do in this fic. For instance, Daisuke Takahashi has just announced he's coming out of retirement after four years at the age of 32! However, it looks like he will actually be skating at his regional competitions, unlike John Watson, who is written by a lazy writer and who is skipping those for convenience purposes.


	9. I Think About You Day and Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your knees are poking into my back,” Sherlock complains.
> 
> “Then pull your seat up,” John says through gritted teeth.
> 
> “I need the space for my legs,” he whines.
> 
> “Well, then, you’re riding to Colorado Springs with my knees in your back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I took a number of liberties with Champs Camp, as I am not an elite-level skater and have thus never been. I know there are some conference-type sessions for athletes and coaches, they get feedback from some judges, and there’s a simulated competition. Also, they make goofy promo videos for the Team USA skaters. I have used bits of this as suit my needs, because I am writing gay porn fanfiction and can do what I want.
> 
> I should also take this opportunity to review how I am dealing with real-life figure skaters, which is that for the men, at least, I’m largely not. They’re not here. The pairs and dance folks remain untouched. Most of the ladies will also be left alone, although I’ve, ah, cleared a bit of space out in places. However, if I kept the current top men’s singles skaters in here, I would have to justify my characters being better than the Nathan Chens and Yuzuru Hanyus, which is a thing I cannot do.

“I’m not riding with Anderson,” Sherlock snaps, plopping down to sit on his upturned suitcase like a petulant child.

John groans and drags his hands down his face. It’s ten at night after a long day, they have nearly two hours’ drive ahead of them to Champs Camp, and Sherlock has been in an almighty strop ever since he figured out that while his odd jobs had made ends meet just enough to pay their bills, they did not have the extra funds to get a rental car so he and John could drive by themselves.

“There’s four of us,” says Greg. “We fit in one car. It’s ridiculous to take two.”

“I’m not riding with him,” says Anderson, glaring at Sherlock.

Greg throws his hands up in the air. “Fine. I can drive my car with John and Sherlock. Anderson, are you fine with driving alone?”

“Extremely.”

“Okay! There. Wasn’t that easy?”

Sherlock continues glowering as they load their luggage into the trunk and back seat of Greg’s car. Without a word, he gets into the passenger’s seat and adjusts it back. John sighs and climbs in behind him while Greg takes the driver’s seat.

“Your knees are poking into my back,” Sherlock complains.

“Then pull your seat up,” John says through gritted teeth.

“I need the space for my legs,” he whines.

“Well, then, you’re riding to Colorado Springs with my knees in your back.”

“John,” Greg says, with infinite patience, “you could get out and push the suitcases over into that seat and sit behind me. I am am taking up a normal human amount of space, being shorter than Sherlock here.”

“There are NCAA basketball players shorter than Sherlock,” John grumbles.

He gets out, shoves the luggage over, and gets back in. By the time he’s buckled, Greg has pulled up the directions to the hotel on his phone and Sherlock has adjusted his seat to take up as much of the new space as he can.

“What kind of music do you boys like?” Greg asks, in a valiant attempt to cut the rising tension.

“Oh, you know,” John says vaguely, at the same time that Sherlock says, “I have a playlist.”

“Describe the playlist,” John says sternly.

Sherlock tuts. “You won’t hate it. It’s perfectly listenable.”

“Limited genres?”

“Depending on your understanding of what constitutes a musical genre—”

John leans forward and snatches Sherlock’s phone. Sherlock yelps. John ignores him and scrolls through the playlist.

“Hmm. Sticking to classic rock so far.”

“So, the music of my youth,” Greg says grimly.

“I’m not an idiot,” Sherlock says. “I did try to pick something enjoyable to the layman.”

“It is acceptable,” John declares.

Sherlock plugs in the aux cord and puts on the playlist.

There is a vaguely awkward silence through “Bad Moon Rising,” “Hot Blooded,” and into “Carry On My Wayward Son.” As Greg pulls onto the highway and the playlist moves into “Heat of the Moment,” John gets twitchy.

“Greg, you have skaters at all the Grand Prix events this season, right?”

“And two of the junior events,” Greg says glumly.

“Are you planning on, what, cloning yourself?”

“He sends emissaries for some of his skaters,” Sherlock says. “But he’ll be there himself for yours.” Sherlock shoots Greg a look that John does, in fact, catch.

“I hear the weather in Russia is just lovely in late October,” Greg says.

“You’re from  _ Toronto,” _ says Sherlock.

“Yeah, but Toronto sees the sun sometimes. October in Moscow is like January in Toronto in that respect.”

Sherlock sighs deeply.

“Anyways, Sherlock, dish.” Greg slaps the steering wheel in mock excitement. “What do you know about what we’re walking into?”

Sherlock launches into a lengthy description of all the information he’s gathered about the Team USA skaters who will be at Champs Camp. John tries to listen, but he’s used to an early bedtime, and the playlist is going through several consecutive power ballads. He leans back, rests his head against the car window, and lets his eyes drift shut.

Just before he slips into sleep, he hears Greg say, “You know he’ll be there.”

“Of course I know,” Sherlock says irritably.

“He’s not assigned to either of John’s Grand Prix events.”

“I know that.”

“And how are we feeling about that?”

There is a long pause before Sherlock finally says, “Nothing at all.”

He doesn’t sound quite himself when he says it, but John is too far gone to pin down exactly what it is.

Later, he will realize that that is the exact way Sherlock sounds when he tells a lie.

———

Registration in the morning goes smoothly. John, Greg, Sherlock, and Anderson pick up their schedules, which three of them examine neutrally and one of them with the utmost disgust.

Sherlock makes a despairing noise. “I refuse.”

“Of course he does,” Anderson says nastily.

“I could teach half of these seminars myself.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Anderson mutters.

“Well, lucky you,” Greg says, right before Sherlock opens his mouth to snap back at Anderson, “you aren’t actually required to go to any of these, since you’re not down as anyone’s primary coach. So you can just hang out with John and Phillip.”

“No he can’t,” says Anderson.

“For once, Anderson is correct,” says Sherlock.

“Fine. I will suffer through the endless seminars, and you can go play by the ice and boss John around.”

“Perfect,” John says. “I’ve got a session on nutrition in a couple minutes, and then I’ve got some ice time.”

“Excellent. We can polish your programs before we show them to the judges and perfect them for the mock competition.”

“Have fun,” Greg says, waggling his eyebrows.

“I’m off,” says Phillip.

As he leaves, John catches Sherlock out of the corner of his eye looking around almost...nervously? It can’t be. Sherlock doesn’t feel nerves. But he is certainly twitchy. Makes sense, when John thinks about it. The last time he was at one of these was probably when he was still competing. It must be weird to be back.

“Are you going to actually come to this nutrition seminar, or am I by myself?” he asks.

Sherlock sneers. “Please.”

“Okay, awesome. Text you when I’m done.”

John finds the room indicated on his schedule and takes a seat near the back. Other skaters file in, talking and laughing with each other or playing on their phones. John recognizes a few from TV coverage: Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, Mirai Nagasu, the Knierims, Ashley Wagner, Karen Chen. There’s only about three dozen or so of them in the room when the seminar starts right on time with a typical bland USFS-designed PowerPoint.

Ten minutes in, John accepts that he’s well and truly zoned out and sneaks out his phone. Cooking videos on Instagram are always a nice way to pass the time. He watches a pair of detached hands making some sinful concoction involving three kinds of chocolate chips and thinks longingly of the days when he could eat whatever he wanted. He’ll have a real off-season soon again. He had seven years of off-season; he can stand to eat healthy again.

Just then, his phone buzzes with a Twitter notification. He opens the app.

“Don’t look now, but @johnwatsonskate is on Instagram during a nutrition seminar,” reads a tweet from @AlexShibutani.

John twists his neck as if cracking it to peek behind him. The ice dancer is sitting behind him with his sister Maia, and both of them are grinning. John briefly grins back before turning back to his phone and typing a response.

“Guess I have to raise my hand and tell the teacher that @AlexShibutani is playing on Twitter during class,” John types, then presses “tweet.”

The response comes quickly. “You’re not a narc, are you?”

“Wait and see.” John finishes it off with the winking emoji, then turns around and winks at Alex in person. Alex and his sister both smile.

At the end of the seminar, as they’re leaving, Alex catches him. “Hey, man!” he says, with the characteristic cheery demeanor John has seen in a hundred Youtube vlogs. “I just wanted to tell you how jazzed I was to see you were competing again!”

“Oh! Uh, thanks!” John says.

“He’s not kidding,” says Maia. “He was, like, over the moon when the announcement broke.”

“Please, you’ll ruin my chill,” Alex stage-whispers. “Anyways, I wanted to ask you—what hotel are you staying at?”

John’s phone buzzes. He checks the screen.

_ At rink. Come at once if convenient. SH _

John puts his phone back in his pocket. “Just the Marriott down the street.”

“Oh my God, awesome! That’s where we are! A bunch of the other skaters are there too. We’re gonna try to meet up by the pool tonight. We try to do it a couple nights of camp. You know, catch up, hang out. Want to come?”

“Oh!” That’s...not what John had been expecting at all. Not that it isn’t a pleasant surprise. “Yeah, sounds good. What time?”

“It’s at eight. I’ll DM you my number just in case.”

“Awesome!”

There’s another buzz from John’s phone.

_ If inconvenient, come anyway. SH _

Alex nods at his phone. “Coach after you?”

“Yeah,” John says sheepishly. “I’ve got ice time and he wants to polish my programs before we start showing them to judges.”

“Don’t let us keep you!” says Maia.

“Yeah. See you tonight!” Alex adds.

John heads off to the rink with a spring in his step. He isn’t ancient, as figure skaters go, but he’s on the older end. He’d never had a ton of friends, and even if he had, there aren’t many skaters still around who had been competing when John was. He had pretty much been expecting to lurk in the backs of rooms and stay close to Greg and Sherlock most of the time. It’s nice to find out that people are actually happy to see him.

John’s still riding that high when he gets into the rink and starts warming up off ice. And then Sherlock approaches.

“Where were you?” Sherlock demands. “We could’ve been on the ice seven minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” John says. “Got held up after the seminar.”

Sherlock sulks until John finishes his off-ice warm-up, gets his gear on, and heads out onto the ice.

The practice is, to put it mildly, challenging.

“That was the worst I’ve seen that since I taught it to you,” Sherlock says, after John’s first run-through of his short program. “Again.”

After the second: “Your combo was dreadful. Any technical panel with eyes is going to downgrade that quad toe. Again.”

After the third: “This is an emotional program. Not those emotions. You look like you want to punch someone.”

“Maybe I do,” John grumbles under his breath.

Sherlock narrows his eyes, but doesn’t comment.

By the time they’ve run through both John’s programs and worked a few spots, John is dripping sweat and ready to live in an ice bath. Sherlock, meanwhile, shows no signs of stopping.

When the Zamboni powers up, Sherlock looks around, startled.

“What time is it?” he says, bewildered.

“Done o’clock,” says John, skating off the ice and towards his bag.

His heart is pounding from more than just the workout. If he weren’t exhausted, he’d probably be throwing punches. As it is, he needs to get to someplace that Sherlock isn’t, or he’s going to say or do something stupid. He strips off his skates, gives them a cursory wipe-down, jams them into his bag, and storms off towards the showers. He comes up behind a pair of chattering girls who look vaguely familiar, and who gasp as he walks by. Whatever.

“‘Scuse me,” he mutters, as he edges past their coach.

“John Watson?” says a familiar voice.

John stops dead. The floor drops out from underneath him. “James?”

James Sholto stares blankly at him. The two oblivious girls are whispering furiously to each other. He waves them away.

“I’ll see you after your next session,” James says to the girls, without looking away from John.

They scatter. James is still regarding John with something like shock. John wipes sweat off his forehead.

“Hey,” he says. “Figures I’d see you here.”

“Not really,” James says. “This is the first year I’ve had anyone with a Grand Prix placement since, uh. Well. You know.”

“Uh, yeah. Well. I’m glad you’re here anyways.”

Finally, James cracks something close to a smile. “You too. I really, really mean it. It was a great loss to the sport when you left skating.”

John’s cheeks warm. “Oh. Uh, thanks.”

“Anyways, I’d better be going. See you.”

James pats John’s shoulder as he passes. It’s a brief, cursory, meaningless gesture that a mentor would give to his student, but the feeling of his hand lingers after he’s gone.

“John?”

At the sound of Sherlock’s voice, John’s heart rate picks up again. He turns. Sherlock is standing not too far away with his bag over his shoulder, wearing an expression like he’s been clubbed over the head. John could not possibly care. He would like to go at least an hour without looking at Sherlock at all.

“What?” John says, trying to infuse as much vitriol as he can muster into his tone.

Sherlock opens his mouth and says, “How old were you when you realized you were in love with your coach?”

John sees red.

He lets his bag slide off his shoulder and to the ground, takes the few steps it takes to get in Sherlock’s space, and hisses, “You don’t get to say a goddamn word to me about James Sholto. Not one fucking word. It’s  _ none _ of your goddamn business who I—” He bites his lip, steps back, and clenches his jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”

Sherlock swallows. “I was only—”

John doesn’t hear the rest. He is already swiping his bag off the ground and heading through the door into the locker rooms. Sherlock does not follow.

———

Sherlock is a tempest.

There is a whirling storm of emotions in his chest, hot and messy and huge. He can’t breathe around them. He can’t even think. God, will he ever be able to think again?

His vision blurs as John walks away—stomps away, more like. He needs to move, to go somewhere, to do something, to take something.

No. Not that.

Instead, he skips out on the rest of the day’s events, goes back to the hotel and paces the short length of the room he shares with John, the room John will have to come back to, where John will have to look at Sherlock, despicable Sherlock, hateful Sherlock, worthless Sherlock.

It isn’t as if Sherlock hadn’t been able to tell John was bisexual. He’d seen the way John reacted when he first met Lestrade. He’s gotten over that by now, although there’s still definitely an element of hero worship that creeps in. And John flirts openly with any woman with a pulse. But this is different. This is practical, tangible proof that John had an actual attraction to a man.

Why does that make Sherlock feel the way he feels? And what does he feel?

Fuck this. He grabs his room key, phone, and headphones and heads down to the hotel exercise room.

It’s empty at this hour. The athletes in town for Champs Camp will all be availing themselves of the superior facilities at the training center, and tourists and travelers on business tend to exercise in the mornings or evenings. It’s still the middle of the day. Sherlock strips off his sweatshirt, puts on his headphones, and gets on the treadmill.

He runs and runs until sweat is seeping into his shirt. As long as he’s moving, he doesn’t have the attention to spare on those messy feelings. There’s a familiar pleasant burn growing in his legs and chest. He turns up the speed and keeps running.

If he’s honest with himself, it isn’t just about John, is it? He’s been snappish all day just knowing who’s here, who he could run into at any minute. Could even be in this very hotel.

Sherlock dials up the speed again.

And now, on top of that, there’s this convoluted reaction to knowing about John’s illicit teenage infatuation, this whatever-it-is that makes his heart pound and his stomach churn. He can’t forget what John looked like after James Sholto touched his shoulder. John shouldn’t look like that at the man who failed him. John shouldn’t look like that at anyone at all, ever. Anyone except— 

He increases the incline on the machine.

And who is he kidding, trying to turn those feelings off? He doesn’t deserve a fucking minute of peace, not after the way he treated John earlier. It’s totally unforgivable, for him to take out his feelings on his student just because he’s not strong enough to—because he can’t seem to—

Someone reaches up and dials the speed down on the machine. Sherlock jerks his head up in surprise.

Lestrade pulls Sherlock’s headphones off. “Sherlock?” he says, but he sounds funny, sort of distant and tinny, and is the treadmill still going, or…?

This is the last thought Sherlock has before he goes down.

Lestrade is prepared. He catches Sherlock under the arms with an, “Oh, no you don’t,” and drags him over to sit against the floor-length mirrors covering the far wall.

“The treadmill dumped me off,” Sherlock says, bewildered.

“Yeah, I know. Drink this.”

Sherlock drinks from the offered water bottle and finds he can’t stop drinking. He gulps down every last drop until there’s nothing left.

“I drank it all,” he says. He holds it out to Lestrade.

“Yep, you did, because you haven’t eaten since dinner yesterday and I bet you haven’t had any water in about as long.”

Sherlock mulls this over. “That’s...true.”

“Ninny.”

The water helped. Sherlock’s head has cleared somewhat. “Shouldn’t you be at…” He doesn’t actually know where Lestrade should be. Some awful seminar, no doubt.

“Someone asked me at lunch what was wrong with you, because they saw you running like a bat out of hell. Figured that couldn’t mean anything good and knew if you weren’t in your room, you’d be here.”

Sherlock sighs heavily. “I’d like a Klonopin now, please.”

“I’m fresh out,” says Lestrade. “I can refill this water bottle instead.”

“Acceptable.”

Lestrade takes the bottle to the fountain in the corner and returns with it freshly filled. Sherlock sucks it down eagerly.

“So,” Lestrade says. He sits down next to Sherlock. “What’s happened?”

Sherlock thinks. What has actually happened? Nothing has actually happened, has it? “I…” he says slowly. “I find myself...emotionally compromised.”

Lestrade nods. “Yeah, I got that much. Might this have anything to do with the, uh, population of this training camp?”

Sherlock frowns. “What?”

“The people who can be found here.”

“Oh.” Sherlock’s stomach twists. He clenches his hand around the water bottle. “It...does, some.”

“I’m going to make a deduction here.”

“This should be good.”

“You’re nervous, you took it out on John, and you said some things you shouldn’t have. Now he’s angry at you, you don’t know how to deal with that, and you’re angry at yourself. Plus whatever mess is usually going on in your head.”

Sherlock blinks. “That’s...more or less correct.” There’s also the precipitating event involving James Sholto, but that’s nothing he’s telling Lestrade.

“Well, I can’t do anything about the original reason you’re nervous, apart from tell you he’s got no reason to bother with you right now. You’re not a threat to him, and we’ve had no sign he’s got his eyes on John.”

“Doesn’t help much,” Sherlock mutters.

“Yeah, I know. What could help is telling John what’s wrong, instead of acting like  _ he’s _ done something wrong.”

“I just...” Sherlock says, gazing into the empty water bottle, “I suppose I just don’t know what to say.”

“Well, first, you’re going to shower, because you smell like a gym sock,” says Lestrade. “Then I’m going to buy you that lunch.”

“I suppose that sounds reasonable.”

“Then, when you see John, you can tell him everything.”

“Everything?” He’s not telling John everything. There is, for instance, the bit Lestrade doesn’t know, the bit Sherlock himself tries not to think about, where the thought of John looking at someone else with genuine attraction makes Sherlock want to bury that person’s body in an unmarked grave. Surely not that part.

“Well. You can apologize to him for acting like an ass, and tell him why this whole trip is turning you into a basketcase.”

“I’m not a basketcase!” Sherlock protests.

Lestrade raises his eyebrows, then waves his hand in Sherlock’s direction as if to indicate his general state at present. Sherlock grimaces.

“Point taken. I’ll talk to him.”

But Sherlock returns from lunch with Lestrade to find John’s suitcase open and no swimming trunks in sight. He has already gone.

———

Spending time with new people is just what the doctor ordered. After a couple hours at the pool cooking himself in the hot tub and drinking, John feels refreshed.

And then it comes time to go back to his room.

The moment the elevator doors close, the resentment and fury bubble up again. He chews the inside of his cheek all the way down the hall to the room.

It’s late, but Sherlock is still awake, sitting on his bed with his laptop open. He shuts it and scrambles to his feet.

“John,” he says. “I—”

John puts up a hand. “No.”

Sherlock sinks back onto the bed. They do not talk again that night.

The next morning, when John gets up, Sherlock is already gone. But of course,  _ of course _ John has ice time first thing, and he’s scheduled for hardly fifteen minutes of warm-up time before the judges come by to give feedback. John rushes through getting dressed and gets to the training center just in time.

Sherlock is waiting for him at the rink, fidgeting with his bag and talking to Greg. Greg sees John first and quiets.

“I’ll be right back,” Greg says, and disappears.

“John,” Sherlock says hurriedly. “Please, it’ll only take a moment—”

“Good morning!” comes a voice from behind John. He jumps as someone claps him on the back. “John Watson, who’d believe it?”

John plasters on a fake, amicable smile and looks to see who it is. “Oh, hi!”

It takes him a moment to place the face in front of him, having only ever seen it on screen. The dark hair is styled differently, too; sort of messy and natural as opposed to the neat, slicked back look John has seen him wear as he won medal after medal after medal.  
“Jim Moriarty, right?” John says.

Jim grins and shrugs. “That’s me!”

“Nice to meet you.”

“And you! Absolutely couldn’t believe it when I heard you were coming back. Never got the chance to skate with you but for that one year of overlap in juniors! I’m just  _ gagging _ for the chance to see you in action again.” Jim winks.

“Oh! Uh, thanks!”

“Anyways, don’t let me stop you. I just wanted to say hi!”

Jim waves as he backs out the door.

“Sorry,” John says, turning back to Sherlock. “What were you...”

Sherlock is standing stock-still, face completely blank and white as a sheet. John is so thrown by this that he forgets to even be angry.

“Sherlock?”

“Hey, I’m here,” says Greg, coming up fast from the direction of the locker rooms. “I saw him leaving. Sherlock, are you—”

Without another word, Sherlock whirls and stalks out of the rink.

“What was that about?” John says to Greg, baffled.

Greg sighs deeply. “That’s for Sherlock to tell you.”

“But—”

“I promise you, he’s going to talk to you. Come on, we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s go.”

John does his programs and gets his feedback, most of which is positive. Greg takes some notes to bring back to Sherlock, then goes to get Anderson ready for his own feedback session. John takes the opportunity to split. On his way out, he checks his schedule. There’s a “mandatory” rehearsal for the goofy video USFS wants for their Youtube. No thanks. Instead, he texts Sherlock.

_ Meet for coffee? _

The reply is swift. There’s no text, just Google map directions to a local Starbucks.

John arrives and finds Sherlock right away. He’s the man taking up two of the comfortable chairs, sitting in one and using the other as a footrest. He’s also surrounded by an intimidating number of empty cups.

“You had four cups of espresso,” John says doubtfully. He lifts Sherlock’s feet up, drops them onto the floor, and takes the chair across from him.

“I’ve had seven,” Sherlock says. He’s speaking at not quite the rate John has retroactively realized indicated Sherlock was high off his tits, but definitely faster than a normal human being.

“Has that helped?”

“No,” Sherlock says, glaring. “Hang on, I’m getting another.”

“No! No, you don’t need another.” John grabs his wrist and tugs him back towards the chair, which Sherlock takes, still glaring like a suspicious cat. “Alright. Greg said you wanted to talk to me.”

Sherlock’s jaw works. He drums his fingers anxiously on the arms of his chair.

“I’m listening.”

“Well,” Sherlock begins, “this morning, I wanted to talk to you because I wanted to apologize for how I treated you yesterday, and I wanted to explain myself, but the situation has rather moved itself up, you see, because the source of my apprehension has made itself—or himself, as the case may be—quite physically manifest, which has only served to exacerbate my existing—”

“Wait!” John holds up a hand. “Normal words, please. At a normal rate.”

Sherlock takes a shaky breath. He looks down at his lap.

“James Moriarty is the man who falsified my doping results and orchestrated my ban from the sport.”

John’s jaw actually, physically drops. “I’m...sorry?”

“It was him,” Sherlock says in a low voice. “He never left enough physical evidence to prove it was him, but I know. He said as much.”

“What?”

Sherlock pulls his legs up onto the chair and folds them so he’s sitting cross-legged. “Our whole careers, we moved in parallel. We came into juniors at the same time, and then seniors. Every competition, he was right behind me. He was always...malicious towards me. Never openly, of course, never where anyone could see or hear. At first it was just strange things he would say, and then it was Scotch tape on my skate blades, and then it was serious sabotage. He’d loosen the mounts on my blades, for instance, not enough for me to notice right away unless I checked. It only did take me one bad fall for me to learn to check, but he’d move on to other things. Once he put something in my water bottle. Not sure what it was, but I suspect it was eye drops. I wasn’t quite hospitalized, but it was close.”

“Jesus!”

“All this time, he couldn’t just work on his artistry or go see a sports psychologist to improve his own performance and beat me on merits!”

John leans in. “So what happened in 2014?”

Sherlock picks at a thread in the seam of his pants. “There were three spots for the Olympic team. At Nationals, I turned in one of the best performances of my career and won a spot easily. On the other hand, Moriarty has been known to choke in competition, and he did. He ended up fourth and was selected as first alternate. After the medal ceremony, he cornered me in the locker room and told me—” Sherlock’s voice catches. He swallows. “He told me he’d see me burn. You know the rest of the story.”

“Holy shit.”

“The best part was his bronze medal at Sochi. Somehow, he keeps earning component scores that he doesn’t deserve, and they earn him those crucial extra points.”

John leans back in his chair. “And you can’t prove any of it?”

“I’ve never been able to work out how he does any of it. He’s extremely clever.”

“God.”

Sherlock unfolds his legs, plants his feet on the floor, leans in, and presses his hands together in front of his face. “And John, don’t you see, he’s threatening me again? He’s making sure I know that there’s nothing I can have that he can’t  _ poison,” _ he spits.

“Hey, hey, hey,” John reaches out and touches Sherlock’s knee in the only comforting gesture he can think of with Sherlock being so volatile, so fragile. Sherlock’s eyes go straight to his hand. “You don’t ‘have’ me. Nobody has me.”

“Poor choice of words.”

“Yeah. Anyways, I’ll be okay. We’ll be careful. I can take care of myself. And in future, if you’re scared shitless of a psychopath who has it out for you, just tell me instead of acting like a jackass, yeah?”

Sherlock nods tightly. “And I’m sorry for what I said to you about your former coach.”

John pulls back. “We don’t need to talk about that.”

“Regardless, I’m sorry.”

“Okay. Want to watch me flop around in this stupid dance video they’re making us do?”

“Not at all.”

———

There’s not room for much of an audience to gather for the mock competition, but the skaters usually hang around to watch the other athletes in their discipline. They’re in alphabetical order for the short program, so John is dead last. Tomorrow they go in reverse order for the free skate, at least, so he’s first then. He gets his costume and skates on, heads over to the few chairs set up for athletes waiting, and sits next to Sherlock.

“Did you see Anderson is up first?” Sherlock says.

“On an unrelated note, are my earplugs in your skate bag?”

They snicker together until Anderson goes out and does a decent job, landing the one and only quad he has and even landing a passable triple axel. The only thing Sherlock can find to complain about is the questionable edge on the first jump in his lutz-loop combination.

“As soon as they post the scores after all this is over,” Sherlock whispers, “I’m checking to see if they called that, and if they didn’t, I’m seriously questioning their judgment.”

“Or their eyesight,” John whispers back. Sherlock snorts.

The next few skaters do less well. First, there’s a skater who is almost old enough to have competed when John did. He can’t manage to get a level 4 on a single spin.[1] Someone does an energetic program to “Turn Down for What” that the judges will almost certainly hate.[2] A small seventeen-year-old from New York has a nasty fall on his axel that makes John wince.

Finally, the announcement comes over the intercom announcing Jim Moriarty.

Sherlock tenses. John reaches over and briefly squeezes his hand.

Moriarty takes the ice. He looks much more recognizable now that his hair is slicked back. His costume is simple, black pants and a dark blue dress shirt. He takes his position: feet slightly apart, arms held out a short distance from his body. [The music begins](https://youtu.be/3Smi1mkeGOg), and when Moriarty’s head comes up, John could swear, would swear on his life, that he looks straight at the two of them.

John is up next. They should be going over and getting ready. Instead, they can’t look away.

Technically, it’s very intimidating. John watches as Moriarty lands first a quad flip, then soon on its heels, a quad sal-triple toe combination. Sherlock takes in a breath as Moriarty jumps into a flying sit spin.

“We’re going into the second half,” he whispers. “He’s put his triple axel there. Questionable decision, since he hasn’t got a great axel, but with two quads and his stamina, they had to put something in the back half.”

They both hold their breath as Moriarty preps the axel, jumps—and stumbles on the landing. Sherlock squeezes John’s hand, and John realizes he never let go after he took Sherlock’s hand before Moriarty began.

The music swells as Moriarty flies into his step sequence.

“Let’s go,” John says. “They’ll be calling me up in just a minute or so.”

John and Sherlock head over towards the opening in the boards for skaters to get on and off and watch as Moriarty whirls into his final spin.

“He’s left room for you,” Sherlock murmurs. “You’re within a point of his base value, and his mistake on the triple axel helps you. You’ll certainly outdo him on components.”

“I’ve got this,” John breathes, jogging in place to get his blood up.

“You’ve got this.”

———

The scores are posted first thing in the morning on Friday. Every skater and coach at the camp is clustered around the wall outside the training rink. Greg, Lestrade, and Sherlock have the terrible luck to end up near the back.

One of the judges, holding a thick stack of A4 paper, climbs onto a chair.

“High tech,” John mutters to Sherlock.

“That’s figure skating for you.”

“Hush,” says Greg.

“Individual scores will be handed out first,” she calls out, “and then the final results will be posted on the wall behind me. Scores have been sorted in alphabetical order and not in order of results. We’ll start with the pairs.”[3]

John groans. Sherlock bounces up and down on his heels.

“Kids,” Greg says sternly.

They get through the pairs, which is a short list, and then the ice dancers, which is rather longer.

“The men, do the men,” John pleads under his breath.

“For the ladies...”

John squeezes his eyes shut and groans.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, they start in on the men.

“Here we go, here we go,” Sherlock mutters. John is dancing back and forth, hopping from foot to foot.

“John Watson, Skating Club of Wilmington.”

“Here!” John throws his hand up, pushes through the crowd while dragging Sherlock behind him, and takes the two stapled sheets of paper. Greg follows close on their heels.

It takes him a second to find the crucial number on the protocol.[4] When he sees it, all the air and blood seem to rush out of his body at once.

“Hell yeah,” Greg says, a little too loudly. “A hundred and five fucking points? With a score like that, we’re in business.”

“That’s slightly inflated, of course,” Sherlock says. “These are all American judges. International judges are unlikely to be as generous, although these are the scores you frankly deserve.”

“Look at the GOE on my triple axel,” John says, awed. “Everybody but one judge gave me a +3.”

“Obviously.”

“Enough with this. Show us the free skate,” Greg says.

John turns the page.

“What the fuck!”

“Lestrade!” Sherlock scolds.

“Yeah, but 206.18!”

“It is very good,” Sherlock admits.

“Very good,” John says, still dumbstruck.

“A combined total of 311.29? Hell yeah that’s very good,” Greg says again. “Oh, shit, the results!”

They have to fight their way through the crowd to see. Only eight men competed, but those men came with at least one judge each, so it’s a bit of a crowd. Luckily, skaters run short.

Sherlock sees it first. John can tell by the way his expression shifts from anxiousness to careful neutrality.

“What?” John demands. “What’s Moriarty’s total?”

Sherlock breaks into a smile. “308.72,” he says.

John’s eyes go wide. “So I’m in…”

“First!” Greg yells.

Greg grabs John by the shoulders and gives him a huge hug that nearly knocks him over. John laughs, still a little dumbstruck.

Then someone leans into his space from behind him, and he doesn’t need to turn around to tell who it is. He knows from the look on Sherlock’s face.

“Congratulations,” Moriarty says softly. “I’ll be seeing you.” As he’s withdrawing, he adds, “You too, Sherlock.”

* * *

1Non-jump elements (step sequences and spins) are leveled 1-4. Leveled elements have to have a certain number of features on a  [ long and confusing list ](https://www.usfigureskating.org/content/2017-18%20Singles%20Levels%20of%20Difficulty.pdf) . Generally, if a high-level skater doesn’t get a level 4 on a spin, it means they counted wrong and changed positions before they had enough rotations in one of them. As Nathan Chen put it, “Spins are hard. You have to do math in the middle of your program.”[return to text]

2What’s up,  [ Jimmy Ma ](https://youtu.be/hVHxI2ertdI) ! He didn’t have GP assignments and would not have been at Champs Camp, but I couldn’t possibly miss the opportunity to feature one of the sickest musical choices at last year’s U.S. Nationals.[return to text]

3Time for a quick crash course on what’s a good score in figure skating!  [ This Tumblr ](http://soyouwanttowatchfs.tumblr.com/post/58756042168/introduction-to-the-isu-judging-system) has a good  [ guide ](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TqiQY86dLfHSXJXbBVoQ4nLHUKiR5UPD) . Using that, examine the results from the most recent  [ Grand Prix Final ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%9318_Grand_Prix_of_Figure_Skating_Final#Men) or the  [ Olympic Winter Games ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_skating_at_the_2018_Winter_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_singles#Results) .  [ Here are the current high scores ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_scores_in_figure_skating#Seniors) .[return to text]

4It takes one million years to find anything on  [ skating protocols ](http://www.isuresults.com/results/season1718/owg2018/OWG2018_MenSingleSkating_FS_Scores.pdf) unless you spend hours staring at them until the images bore themselves into your eye holes.[return to text]


	10. Friend is a Four-Letter Word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "But sometimes it’s just that I click with someone.”
> 
> “Click?”
> 
> “You know. Kind of like we did, but...different.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to learn before I promise a timeline on updates. This chapter turned out to be more of a bear than expected. I went through about three versions before I settled on this one.

“I hate this,” John says, as he unlaces his skates again.

“Would you like a list of skaters who have lost out on titles because of last-minute equipment problems?” says Sherlock. “You’ll thank me when your boot starts peeling away from the mount and you have a spare pair that’s fully broken in.”

“Two spares, though?” John grumbles.

“Two.”[1]

There is another reason to have all of John’s equipment in triplicate, one that puts a knot in Sherlock’s stomach and which both of them fear to name. Naming it would make it somehow more real, especially here, at their rink.

“You’ve practically nothing to complain about. Edeas have a break-in time of practically nil. When I was breaking in my Jacksons—”

“You had to walk uphill in the snow both ways, right?” John says.

There’s a hint of a smirk around the corners of John’s mouth that implies he’s made some joke that Sherlock doesn’t get. Sherlock narrows his eyes.

“Anyways,” he says, “you should be fine by the time we leave for Salt Lake City.”

After much debating, Lestrade had elected to send several of his skaters to the U.S. International Classic in the middle of September. They won’t have much in the way of competition, but it will get points towards rankings and test out programs, something John in particular needs.

“Any news on Anderson?” John asks.

“A definite no, as far as I’ve heard. Still trying to get that ankle more solid.”

“Oh, I’ll miss him so,” John deadpans. “So it’s me, Molly, Sally, and the kids?”

“That’s it. I want to discuss your jump layout for just this competition. I’m thinking of letting the quad lutz wait until…”

Sherlock talks all the way out of the rink and through the entire bus ride home, thinking out loud more than holding a conversation. As long as he’s working on a problem, he can’t dwell upon anything else at all. No looming threats to everything he’s build and could continue to build, nothing.

They’re into the apartment before John ruins it.

“We don’t have to see him until the Grand Prix Final at the absolute earliest,” he says softly.

Sherlock’s blood runs cold. He tucks himself further back into the sofa and opens his laptop.

“And that’s if he and I both make it.”

Sherlock unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth, which has gone suddenly dry. “His coach will be at other events with other skaters. I have long suspected that Magnussen has been fully aware of everything that—”

“So we’ll be careful.”

Sherlock shuts the laptop and pushes it aside. “You don’t understand,” he says through gritted teeth. His hands are clenching into fists on his knees. “Four years ago, he was willing to go to the lengths of—of what he did to me. Neither of us can know what he is willing to do now.”

“Yeah,” John says. “But what else can we do, besides what we’re already doing? What use is it to let him distract us? We’ve got to keep our heads in the game, right?”

Sherlock swallows. “I suppose.”

He does not actually know how he is supposed to “keep his head in the game” under the current circumstances, but he also does not know what else he can do.

“Stop thinking.”

Sherlock blinks. “What?”

“You’re thinking too hard. Stop.”

“You can’t just...stop thinking. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Does.”

“But—”

John sighs deeply, drops his shoulders, and says, “Alright, then, tell me again about the layout in my long. I know we said we’re putting a quad sal in as the first jump in my short instead of the lutz, but what did we settle on for the long?”

Sherlock takes in a breath, starts talking, and doesn’t stop for some time.

Occasionally, John objects, or counters, or asks a question. Sherlock moves from sitting on the sofa, to standing on the other side of the sofa, to the kitchen, and back to the living room again. The discussion, if it can be called that, somehow refuses to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

At one point, Sherlock comes up short mid-sentence. “I was thinking about something,” he says.

“Mm-hm,” says John, sipping from a protein shake. When did he stop to make a protein shake? “And now you’re thinking about something else.”

“What was I thinking about?”

“Doesn’t matter. Hey, what if we swap the triple-triple in the second half with the combo in the first half?”

“You can’t possibly believe you can land a combo with a quad in it in the second half.”

“You wanna bet?”

The ensuing bickering and scribbling on scrap paper and calculating base values takes up nearly half an hour, by the end of which the layouts are still not set but it is time to go to off-ice training.

It is hours later that Sherlock showers, undresses, goes to bed, and realizes he was played. Played expertly, like he plays his violin. It has been hours since the thought of James Moriarty bothered him.

When did he become so easy to read? Can everyone see through him so adroitly? Surely not. Hopefully not. The idea is repulsive. But if it’s only John, that isn’t so bad. John could possibly be permitted to see into him, just the littlest bit.

Sherlock takes out his phone and taps out a text.

_ Thank you. _

He stares at it for a moment, then adds,  _ It is sometimes good to be known. _

Sherlock looks at the text, erases it, and puts his phone face down on the bedside table.

———

“The state of Wyoming is eternal,” Sherlock announces, letting his head thunk against the window. “And I am in hell.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Lestrade says. “We’re nearly there. Just about an hour.”

“Which is another  _ hour _ of the soundtrack to...Fruit Chop.”

John and Molly, in the backseat, appear irritatingly oblivious to Sherlock. They both have their phones out, and most egregiously, John has the volume up. They’re both playing some insipid games and showing each other and giggling and Sherlock hates the two of them and smartphones and Greg Lestrade for insisting that driving from Denver to Salt Lake City would be a “valuable experience.”

“It’s Fruit Ninja,” Lestrade says.

“That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing.”

Behind him, John grins and shows Molly his screen. She titters, shows him hers, and tells him something about some cats she found in her phone. Sherlock contemplates murder.

“You just try having children,” Lestrade says. “This is way easier.”

“You don’t have children.”

“No, but I’ve driven a lot of teenagers to a lot of competitions.”

“So today isn’t an isolated experience,” Sherlock mutters.

This, of course, is the part John hears. “Hey! I am a grown adult and so is Molly.”

“She’s sixteen.”

“I’m twenty,” Molly chimes in timidly.

“And she was eighteen when you met,” Lestrade adds.

“It was irrelevant. I deleted it, as John ought to delete that ludicrous phone game.”

“It kills time!” John says defensively.

At this juncture, there is a brief scuffle as Sherlock unbuckles his seatbelt so as to make a grab for John’s phone. Molly presses herself as flat as possible to the window, giggling helplessly, while Lestrade threatens dire consequences upon anyone who makes him spill his latte. John achieves a stalemate when he switches his phone off and sits on it.

“So, Molly, if we can’t amuse ourselves like free, red-blooded Americans, let’s talk shop,” John says. “I don’t remember what the ladies’ lineup is going to be like. My head is pretty firmly buried in the sand on that front.”

She smiles. Sherlock chews the inside of his cheek.

“No one I’m meeting in international competition anywhere else, really,” she says. “It’ll be nice to get out and see people I don’t usually see.”

“Definitely! I know you have to look at my wrinkly ass for at least one Grand Prix assignment this season, right?”

“Yeah! We both have NHK Trophy.”

“Fun! We can play Fruit Ninja on the plane to Japan.” There is another bit that John whispers and Sherlock can’t hear. His pulse ticks up.

“Gina Chan has both your Grand Prix assignments as well, isn’t that right?” Sherlock says.

There is a moment’s quiet before Molly says, “Yes.”

“John, Gina Chan is the three-time Canadian national champion. Molly’s lost to her by a margin of no less than six points every—”

“Sherlock,” John says.

“Hey, let’s listen to some radio!” Lestrade says loudly.

For the rest of the trip, there is no more Fruit Cutter or Cat Catcher or giggling, and Sherlock feels loads better.

———

They arrive on Tuesday. John’s practice is first thing Wednesday morning. It does not go well.

“Fuck!” John growls, as he smacks onto the ice for what feels like the hundredth time.

Every time he gets up, he expects to hear Sherlock yelling something acerbic from where he’s watching by the boards. He expects to see Sherlock frowning, or worse, not even watching him.

He’s skated through the current version of his short program twice now, once with the jumps and once without, and fallen on both the quad sal-triple toe and the triple lutz. The only thing he can land today consistently is the triple axel, and even that’s wobbly at times. He’s nixed the back counter entry. It sacrifices some points, sure, but fewer than he’d lose if he can’t get a positive grade of execution.

John’s free skate goes, if possible, worse. Out of eight jumps, he lands one clean. Everything else, he pops, he steps out, he two-foots, he underrotates. He can’t imagine what his face looks like. His hip is aching worse than it has in ages. When they announce that it’s time to clear the ice, John is off like a shot.

Sherlock is waiting for him, expression unreadable.

“John,” he begins.

“Don’t,” John says shortly.

In the locker room, John goes through the motions of putting his equipment away. His heart is still pounding. Sherlock, he knows, is waiting for him outside, and he can’t avoid talking about it forever.

The other men—God, his competitors—are all around him, chatting and laughing and acting like everything’s wonderful. And here’s John, doing everything he can to stay here, in this drab gray room where he won’t have to face what an idiot he’s made of himself.

Everyone else clears out. John keeps wiping down his long-dry blades.

“Come on.”

John doesn’t look up. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

“What about you? Are you planning on sleeping here? Everyone has bad practices.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Practices aren’t necessarily an indication of how an athlete will perform. At Cup of China in 2016—”

“I don’t care!” John shouts, half-throwing his boot into his bag. “I don’t give a single fuck what happened at Cup of China in 2016 or anytime else. I care about here, and now, and the fact that you and Greg have put hours and weeks and months of work into me and I’m about to fucking blow it.”

There is a long, heavy silence, in which John looks directly at his feet. Distantly, they are calling for the first group of ladies to take the ice.

“Are you going to tell me some sports psychologist bullshit about directing my adrenaline?” John says sharply.

“No. I’m going to tell you this is exactly how Lestrade and I wanted you to feel just about now.”

At this, John does look up. “What?”

“This is a Challenger Series competition,” Sherlock says, “full of athletes who only ever make the podium at their regionals. Your programs have been redesigned to still score relatively high even if you skate like you did today. We are here so you can have your nerves here, and not at Rostelecom Cup a month from now.”[2]

John swallows. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Well.”

“Are you ever going to speak in complete sentences again?”

“Maybe,” John says, “when I stop feeling like an idiot.”

“You are an idiot. But everyone is, so it isn’t so bad.”

John sighs, leans down, packs his gear up properly, and gets to his feet. He takes a single step and stops with a wince.

“Hip?” Sherlock says.

“Yeah. I know, I know, it’s all in my head.”

“Psychosomatic pain is still pain. I’ll help you back at the hotel.”

“You’ll help me,” John says dubiously.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Why does everyone always assume I have some ulterior motive? I have sports massage training.”

“Of course you do.”

———

They leave the arena and take the short cab ride back to their hotel, where John showers and emerges wearing a tank and gym shorts. Sherlock has also changed, but he is in the pajama pants and T-shirt that are his usual gear for lounging around the house.

When the bathroom door opens, Sherlock puts down his phone and gets to his feet.

“Get on the very edge of the bed on your stomach,” he says. “You can get under the covers, but let your leg hang out.”

“Why Sherlock, you could’ve just asked anytime,” John says.

“Do you want my help or not?”

Is he blushing? John can’t tell in this light.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting on the bed.”

John lies on the bed and rests his forehead on his arms. Sherlock rolls back the sheets over his right leg, takes it in both hands, bends it ninety degrees, cups his knee, and plants his other hand over John’s—lower back? Upper thigh? There’s no real getting around it, it’s his right buttock—and stretches his thigh back. It’s far from the first time John’s gone through this, but it’s the first time in a hotel room with a friend. That must be why it feels so different.

“Most people buy me dinner first,” John says.

“Let me focus. How’s this?”

“Little stiff.”

“Okay. Turn over.”

John rolls over onto his back. Sherlock pushes the sheets back again and rolls the leg of John’s shorts all the way up. John shivers.

“Don’t move,” Sherlock says. “I need to find this trigger point.”

“I’ve never heard it called that before.”

Sherlock seems to have decided to ignore him entirely. He feels around the juncture of John’s hip at the very top of his thigh until he finds something that makes John twitch when he digs his fingers in.

“Hold still,” Sherlock says.

He presses his palm flat over the spot and leans in hard with his whole body. John makes a noise in the back of his throat. Something is gradually giving way deep in the muscles there, or possibly all the way back in the joint.

“Mmf,” he says. “That’s...strange.”

“Too much?”

“No, just enough.”

Sherlock rocks back and forth a little, then lifts his hand away. “That’s a good start.” He picks up a small tub from the bedside table and swipes up something that he rubs between his hands. “Hang your leg over the edge of the bed.”

John obliges, and Sherlock smears the lotion over the top of his thigh. John swallows. This definitely, definitely feels different from any sports massage he’s ever gotten. He has just enough time to parse what the reaction he’s feeling is before Sherlock starts rubbing his palm from the top of his knee to the top of his thigh, over the full length of his quads.

Gradually, John feels the rest of his body relaxing as the tension in his thigh dissipates. He lets his eyes drift shut. He’d been nervous before, right? He can barely even imagine nerves now.

Another feeling is building, one that he is trying stubbornly to ignore. But the fact is that he’s on a hotel bed, and a man that John has to admit is frankly gorgeous has his soft, smooth hands on John’s bare thigh, and John has certain associations with these particular experiences.

Which is to say that John is very, very glad the sheets have bunched up over the front of his shorts.

It’s nothing to do with Sherlock, of course. It’s just the situation they’re in. In fact, John could probably make a joke about it, and Sherlock would scoff and roll his eyes.

John doesn’t make a joke.

“Better?” Sherlock asks. He sounds odd. Different. Sort of hushed.

“Yeah.” John doesn’t sound like himself either, does he? He isn’t sure.

“Okay. I’m going to try something else.”

Which is when Sherlock takes John’s ankle, straightens his leg, and pushes it out slowly, gently, until he’s at the limit of his flexibility. A few muscles complain a little, but John is too caught chanting  _ oh God, oh God, oh God _ at the implications of the position. The last time he had his leg this far back in a hotel room was—

“Tell me what hurts the most,” Sherlock says in that strange, hushed voice, and then, oh then, he starts gently prodding various muscles of John’s inner thigh.

John keeps his eyes firmly shut and tries to breathe very slowly as heat pools low between his legs. “That’s okay. That’s fine. That’s—there, yeah.”

“That’s,” Sherlock pauses, then repeats, “That’s where most people have the most trouble. The adductor magnus.”

“Yeah,” John says, rather breathlessly. “Adductor magnus.”

Sherlock props John’s foot on his hip to bend his leg again, leaving it still fallen open as if John is waiting for him to—

—no—

—and then Sherlock’s hands return with a fresh dollop of lotion, one holding John’s knee in place and the other pressing down and running up the inside of his thigh, going all the way to the top.

John has never controlled his breathing so desperately in his life. He is sure his cheeks are flaming red, if there’s even enough blood left in his body to go to his face. His heart is pounding so hard that surely Sherlock can hear it, or feel it as his fingers stroke over his femoral artery, then back, then over, then back.

John isn’t sure what he wants. He doesn’t know if he wants to retire to Siberia and never be seen again, or take a second shower as soon as this is done and come explosively all over the tiled hotel bathroom walls, or find someone in a bar and go back to theirs and get fucked into next Tuesday.

Unbidden, another thought arises: the sheets being pulled back right here, right now. Maybe they fall off accidentally when John moves to get up, or John pulls them back, or Sherlock says in that low, dark voice, “What are you trying to hide, John?” and pulls them back himself. In this picture, Sherlock’s eyes go wide, then soft at the corners, and Sherlock bends John’s leg back again, insinuates his slick hand into the leg of John’s shorts, and—

“That should be good,” Sherlock says quickly. “Better?”

John swallows. “Yes, much, thanks.”

“I’d better shower before dinner.”

Just like that, John is left laying there with the bedsheets still puddled over his front, his leg hanging over the edge of the bed, and his erection throbbing.

He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling.

“What.”

———

In the little ensuite, Sherlock lets the water course over him as hot as he can bear, leaning his arm against the tile and biting his lip as he takes his cock in hand and wishes desperately that he was a professor or a barista or a personal trainer, anyone but the coach of a man he wants terribly to touch like that again and again and again.

———

“No offense, John,” Greg says, “but this medal looks like hot garbage.”

“The design is horrendous,” Sherlock agrees.

John dangles the medal in front of his face. “Hmm,” he says, as if pondering. “Yes, some very questionable artistic decisions were made, yes. But aha! What’s this?” He squints at the medal. “It appears to be what they call a ‘gold’ medal. Is that good?”

“I’ve heard it’s pretty good,” says Greg.

“You know, in that case, if this ‘gold medal’ is ‘pretty good,’ as you say, I think I don’t actually care.”

“Cheers to that,” Greg says, lifting his glass.

The three of them clink glasses, Greg’s old fashioned and John’s Jack and Coke and Sherlock’s water. John had changed out of his costume after the competition, and Greg had put on a pair of jeans and a worn T-shirt from an ice show that hasn’t toured since the mid-nineties. Sherlock, of course, is still in the black slacks and white button-down he wears under his coach’s jackets. They are arranged in armchairs in the hotel bar around the remnants of their dinners in varying stages of relaxation.

“Anyways, John,” Sherlock says urgently, leaning forward, “we need to talk about what we’ve learned from this experience. I’m thinking that for Rostelecom, we should—”

Greg cups one hand around his mouth. “Boo! Shop talk!”

“Yeah!” John adds. “No skating talk at celebratory drinks!”

Sherlock scowls. “None?”

“None,” Greg says smugly, taking a sip.

“What on earth are we doing, then?”

“Drinking,” John says, and drinks. “Having fun.”

“And what do we talk about?” says Sherlock peevishly.

“Man stuff,” Greg says, in a mock-deep voice.

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Spare me.”

“Do that thing you do,” Greg says. “The deductive thing.”

“It’s not a party trick.”

“That’s only because you’ve never been to a party in your life,” says John.

“There is a banquet after every competition!”

“And you weasel out of every one you can,” Greg says.

Sherlock opens his mouth, then shuts it again.

“This would all be going better if we were all drinking,” says John. “Sherlock, I’m going back up to the bar. What are you having that’s not water?”

“Is coconut water—”

“No!” Greg and John say together.

“What do you like?” John asks in a tone of supreme patience.

Sherlock shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“He’s never had a drink in his life,” Greg says.

John boggles. “Never?”

He tries to remember when he had his first drink. Must’ve been when he was very young. His dad would give him sips of his beer sometimes to watch the face he’d make. He does remember the first time he’d been properly drunk, at a fellow skater’s end-of-season house party when he was fifteen. The idea of someone making it to and past legal drinking age without ever having alcohol is wild to him.

“Unnecessary calories,” Sherlock says.

“Wine is low-calorie,” John says.

“So is vodka,” Greg says.

“So it’s decided. Excellent!” John claps his hands together. “Sherlock, we’re getting you drunk.”

“What?” Sherlock says, sounding slightly bewildered.

“Put it on my tab!” Greg calls at his receding back.

John returns with a tray containing a number of shots and a glass of tonic water. He sets it on the table in front of them.

“Excellent,” Greg says, leaning forward. “What have we here?”

“We’ve got—wait, why do you have two phones?”

“Sherlock was Googling the nutritional information of various alcoholic drinks. Go on.”

“We’re starting off easy, with some Fireball for Sherlock and tequila for us. Sherlock, the tonic water is your chaser.”

“Chaser?” Sherlock says doubtfully.

“I’ll explain later. Next, we have Malibu for Sherlock and, for us, Señor Cuervo.”

“Good plan, good plan,” says Greg.

“Then, there’s some very nice vodka for Sherlock and, again, our good friend Jose.”

“How nice is this vodka?”

“You were very generous. And, finally, we have a full round for all three of us of that fine nectar of the agave plant.”

“What is that?” Sherlock says.

“Tequila.”

Greg claps his hands together. “Arrange the libations, my good man!”

John distributes the drinks. Sherlock watches with something like suspicion.

“What do I do?” he finally asks.

“It’s easy. This one is a shot glass of water for you to practice with, so you can do it perfectly on your first try like I know you like. I’ll demonstrate and then you can go.”

The explanation, demonstration, and practice shot go perfectly fine. Sherlock does manage to actually down his shot of Fireball, but then starts coughing like he’s inhaled a peanut.

“Chaser! Drink the chaser!”

John shoves the tonic water at him. Sherlock takes it and gulps a mouthful down.

“That was terrible, and I don’t feel anything,” he says.

“Give it half an hour,” Greg says. He’s lounging back in his chair with his legs crossed, looking satisfied. “You’ll feel it. Now, do that thing.”

Sherlock sighs deeply. “I can’t just pick someone.”

“I’ll pick then. Woman at the bar talking to the man who’s not in her league.”

Sherlock leans forward, props his elbows on his knees, presses his hands together, and tucks them up under his chin. “She’s recently out of a long-term relationship. He did the dumping, but she should have lost him long ago—he was leeching off of her money. She’s got a fairly well-paying job in the pharmaceutical industry, but she doesn’t need it. Her family’s independently wealthy.”

John, who has seen this trick before, is delighted. “Amazing!”

Sherlock flushes. “Not really.”

“No, it is! How’d you know that?”

Sherlock launches into a lengthy explanation about the scuffs on her shoes and the way she does her hair, which John absorbs about half of.

“I do actually think I feel something,” Sherlock says, staring at his hands. “A sort of...lightness?”

“Better do more shots, to be safe,” says John, smirking and sliding the next glass over.

The second shot goes much better than the first, and the next even better than that. Sherlock throws the third back daintily and draws the back of one long finger over his lower lip to wipe off a drop, then sucks it clean in a way that reduces Greg to helpless laughter. John joins in after a moment’s blank staring. He can’t quite seem to look away from this different, more relaxed Sherlock.

“Okay,” Sherlock says, sinking back into his chair. “Have me do another one.”

“Showoff,” says Greg.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees.

This sends Greg off in a fit of laughter, so John picks out a man in a suit at the bar by himself. Sherlock squints at him.

“Publicly closeted gay and looking for a one-night stand,” he says immediately.

Greg and John lean in.

“Oh yeah,” Greg says. “I can see it.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “No you can’t.” His voice has gone delightfully blurry around the edges, his clipped, precise English accent rounding out in some places and becoming more pronounced in others.

“Sherlock, I was a closeted bisexual for multiple decades. I’m familiar with the signs.” He casually gives the businessman a once-over. “I would.”

Sherlock frowns. There’s a delightful little wrinkle that appears between his eyebrows when he does. “Would what?”

“I think what Greg is saying,” John says, “is that he would enjoy a carnal encounter with this man.”

“A roll in the hay,” Greg says.

“To form the beast with two backs.”

“To bump uglies.”

Sherlock waves his arms in the air. “These are all moronic! I get it!”

“What about you, John?” Greg says, sitting back.

John blushes bright red. “What? I, uh…”

Sherlock flaps a hand, which is distracting enough for John to forget a little that he’s embarrassed. The gesture has a startlingly femme bent to it. “We’ve already established that Lestrade can spot a closeted bisexual.”

Lestrade shrugs. “Yeah. So. John.”

Blush still fading, John sneaks a peek at the businessman. “Eh. Maybe. Not really my usual type.”

Sherlock smiles an open-mouthed smile. With the spots of color on his cheeks and his relaxed posture, it makes him look very young and carefree. John smiles back, and feels something warm swell in his stomach. He looks away.

“And we both know Sherlock hasn’t even got a type,” he continues.

Sherlock rolls his eyes again. “I fail to comprehend this constant speculation by fans and the media about athletes’ sexuality,” he says, gesturing dramatically. “This pairs team is secretly together. This dance team. This skater is gay. Why does it  _ matter? _ Can we not be simply married to the sport? Why must everyone constantly be wondering?”

“Yeah,” says Greg seriously, “especially considering it looks like all they need to do to know for sure is to watch how you flap your hands when you’re drunk.”

John dissolves into peals of laughter. Sherlock looks outraged, while Greg is sitting back with a superior expression.

“Okay,” says Greg, “that’s as good a time as any to take this last round.”

The tequila is not, it transpires, their last round.

John isn’t entirely sure where they stop. Long Island iced teas enter the equation. Eventually, he and Greg start loudly arguing about hockey. John, a Pennsylvanian, is sworn loyal to the Pens, and Greg is a staunch Oilers fan. Sherlock slumps down into his chair and idly traces patterns on the exposed triangle of skin at his neck. At some point, he undid the top two buttons. There’s a light flush there. A thought pops into John’s head, wondering how far down that flush goes. Where did that come from? He’d better switch to water.

The server comes around and lets them know it’s last call. Greg stands up and stretches.

“That’s me finished, gentlemen,” he says. “I’ll go close out the tab.”

As he heads over to the bar, John stands up—okay, the expected pleasant unbalanced feeling, but he’s been here before—and pats Sherlock’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Sherlock grumbles something under his breath.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said,” Sherlock mumbles, “unless you want to go up with that handsome businessman.”

“What?”

Sherlock flops sideways, rests his elbow on the arm of his chair, and props his chin up on his fist. “‘S not important.”

“Okay. Come on, then.”

He takes both of Sherlock’s hands and helps him to his feet. There’s a moment of dangerous swaying, but he rights himself. Mostly. He’s walking, but in a very slight serpentine pattern. John links their arms together.

“See you in the morning,” Greg calls from the bar.

They make it to the elevator with John having to do only a little bit of steering. As soon as they’re in, Sherlock leans back against the wall.

“Think drinking’s not too bad,” he says thoughtfully. “For occasionally.”

“That’s the general opinion.” The elevator dings and the doors open. “Let’s go.”

Getting from the elevator to the hotel room requires a bit more manhandling. Once inside, Sherlock goes immediately to his bed and flops onto it.

“Nuh-uh. Water and Tylenol and then you can sleep.”

Sherlock groans in complaint, but he sits up and accepts the water and pills that John offer, downs both, and flops back down.

“You can sleep in a dress shirt and pants?”

Sherlock grunts, then starts unbuttoning his shirt.

John coughs, grabs his pajamas, and retreats to the bathroom to change. When he emerges, Sherlock has gotten his pajama pants on without getting up and is struggling with his shirt. John’s mouth goes dry at the sight.

“You want help?” John says.

“No!”

Just then, Sherlock finally gets his head and both arms through the correct holes, pulls the shirt on, throws the sheets on the other half of the bed aside, and burrows in.

“Good night, then.”

John climbs into his bed, turns off the light, and shuts his eyes.

“John?” Sherlock says.

John sighs. “Yes?”

“Businessman.”

“What about the businessman?”

“Said he wasn’t your type.”

“He’s not.”

“Whassur type?”

John thinks about this. If he’s honest, he doesn’t have a very definite type. He more has non-types than anything. Bears are definitely not his thing, and he’s not much into the ultra-butch types in general. He runs through some of the past partners he’s had and thinks about what he liked about them.

“Well,” he says slowly, “I like interesting people. Someone who can hold my attention. Or people I just kinda connect with.”

“Whazzat mean?”

“Like, people with a weird sense of humor, or a weird hobby. But sometimes it’s just that I click with someone.”

“Click?”

“You know. Kind of like we did, but...different.”

“Huh.”

Then there’s silence, almost long enough for John to assume Sherlock’s nodded off. Then Sherlock mumbles something, unclear enough that John at first thinks he’s talking in his sleep. But then he repeats himself again, definitely the same thing, although still not quite comprehensible.

“What’s that?” John says.

“I dun know my type,” Sherlock says.

This is enough to make John turn over and switch the light back on. “Wait. But you’ve…”

“Engaged in multiple instances of oral sex.”

“Yes, I know. But you’ve never even...had a crush? Been in any kind of relationship?”

“Stupid word, crush.”

“Yeah. But you haven’t?”

“Nn. Couldn’t. Public eye and all. Too famous to be queer. Have to think of—of judge bias. PCS.”

“But you’ve never wanted a relationship?”

“Don’t know.”

“You...don’t know,” John says slowly.

“Dunno what it would feel like to want to.”

“You don’t know what an erection feels like.”

“Don’ be stupid, ‘m not a robot. The...other stuff.”

“Oh.” John chews his lip for a moment. “Well,” he says, at length, “sometimes it starts with the physical attraction, and sometimes it never goes beyond that. Sometimes the physical attraction comes later.”

“After what?”

John lies back down and stares at the ceiling. It’s not something he wants to describe while he looks at Sherlock. He doesn’t want to see Sherlock’s scoff.

“It doesn’t happen right away,” John says. “But one day, you realize being around that person feels like taking a drink when you didn’t even realize you were thirsty, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. Or like falling into bed when you’re totally exhausted. And when you’re around that person, you just feel content. Comfortable. Good. You’d share more with them than you would with anyone else in the world, but you also feel like you don’t need to, because you feel like they know you. And you’d do anything for them. Oh, God, and sometimes they don’t feel the same for you, and that’s the worst. It hurts just to talk to them, or be around them, because all you can think about is how they’ll never return your feelings. It hurts. Like, physically hurts. There’s this ache in your chest that never really goes away. And you get jealous. Like, the idea of them having those feelings towards anyone else makes you crazy. Makes you do stupid things, say stupid things, so they’ll look at you instead. You know? Have you ever felt that?”

There’s silence from the other side of the room.

“Sherlock?” John says.

Still silence.

Ah well. He must’ve finally dropped off. John switches the light off, rolls over, and goes to sleep.

———

Sherlock leans his head against the seat of the toilet and groans.

“How are you doing in there?” John calls at what feels like a deafening volume.

Pain lances through his head. Sherlock winces. “If you could...keep it down a little.”

He rocks his head to the side so he can see the door of the bathroom, while John leans against the door frame. Hatefully, he is smirking.

“Does this happen every time?” Sherlock whispers.

“Nah. Probably we could’ve done a better job making sure you stayed hydrated last night, and you really want to count your drinks better and space them out more.”

“Hng.” Sherlock swallows. He’s actually pretty certain he’s done. There’s nothing left in him.

“Okay. Let’s go meet Greg. We’ll grab you some water and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.”

Sherlock’s stomach churns at the suggestion of food. He glares at John.

“Trust me.”

“That’s what you said before the Long Island iced tea,” Sherlock grumbles.

Downstairs, Lestrade meets them with a big grin. “How’s it going, Sherlock?”

Sherlock grimaces.

“Poor lamb,” says Lestrade. “We can get on the road. Molly’s riding back with Irene and Mary.”

They load up Lestrade’s car and stop at a drive-through for breakfast. Sherlock is dubious, but the sandwich does help, as does the black coffee and water.

He lays out in the back seat of the car and stares at the roof, thinking about the night before. He expected it to be hazy and nebulous, but surprisingly, he can remember every word.

Sherlock can’t even bear to name the feelings he knows he has. Even before this, he had recognized some of how he felt around John. As he had told John last night, he isn’t a robot. But there were other feelings, unfamiliar ones, that he couldn’t put a name to.

He can put a name to them now. But he mustn’t. As long as they are unnamed, he can push them down. Ignore them.

“Anyways,” John is saying, “I have to admit it, Greg, you were right. It’s fun to hit the road with friends.”

“Isn’t it, Sherlock?” Lestrade says, as aggressively loudly as before.

Sherlock hums noncommittally.

* * *

 

1Nathan Chen actually does this. He travels with three fully broken-in skates to every competition, because few things are worse than arriving at a competition fully ready to go and having your equipment start falling apart. Nathan had boot problems at 2017 Worlds and subsequently missed out on the podium. Dabin Choi had to totally withdraw after the 2018 Worlds short program because of boot trouble. The “bring multiple spares” solution is a bit on the intense side, though.[return to text]

2 [ The Challenger Series ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISU_Challenger_Series) competitions are ISU-sanctioned, so they’re “official,” but they don’t qualify towards a final the way that Regionals lead to Nationals which lead to Worlds, or the Grand Prix series leads to the GP Final. They’re sort of optional extra competitions, and big-name skaters will use them as sort of testing grounds to try things out or earn points in international rankings. To give you an idea of the diversity, the real 2017 U.S. Classic had everyone from  [ Nathan Chen ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4KAcZLbEbM) with a 91.80 in the short all the way down to  [ this gentleman ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N256vzgk-Ws) for Taipei with a 36.40.[return to text]

Some notes on sports hip massage: I’m sure anyone who has actually had this done in a professional setting would not find it sexy in the least. However, this is gay porn, and I do what I want. [Here’s the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwJBcaoIFTM) I found while researching what Sherlock should be doing that made me yell aloud about the possibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: the Grand Prix series begins, and we really get into it!


	11. I Used to Live Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not until the elevator doors close behind them does Sherlock say through gritted teeth, “There was a problem with our reservation.”
> 
> “I mean, clearly we have a room.”
> 
> “Yes,” says Sherlock tersely, “with one bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a million years since I updated, so you get a novel of an author's note. Sorry.
> 
> Look, I'm not going to try to play like this chapter took a long time to write. I had a wedding to plan and be in, and then a honeymoon to go on, and writing gay skating trash fell by the wayside. Hopefully the contents of this chapter make up for the wait, and much of the next chapter is already written.
> 
> The Grand Prix series has run its entire course now! If you're interested in checking out the real top skaters in the world, go look at [this excellent site](https://soyouwanttowatchfs.com/). And then, if you want the full mad fan experience, follow my [FS Twitter](https://twitter.com/yuzus4a). Don't be intimidated; immersion is the best way to learn everything. Or you can just follow my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/songlin221) where sometimes I bitch about writing.
> 
> Thanks to allsovacant, who made a cover for this fic!
> 
> Also, we have some proper Skating John video now! The latest [Vodafone ad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359217) features Martin Freeman (or, more accurately, Team GB figure skater [PJ Hallam](https://twitter.com/YETI_PJ/status/1077327474655154176) with Martin's face pasted on) doing some lovely skating. For those nerds, it's a Y spiral, Russian split jump, triple toe loop (I think? not a great shot of the entry), and a scratch spin. Thank you to everyone who tagged me in it!
> 
> One final note about scores: I am pretty sure these scores check out as reasonable, according to the 2017-2018 ISU rulebook. I've taken some liberties (as I have in many other places in this fic) about some of the more subjective scores, as John would in real life be unlikely to score so high due to some truly irritating tendencies towards reputation scoring. Don't worry, [I have a permit to do this.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/270/123/1c1.png)

John sits on his upright suitcase and smothers a yawn. He can never sleep on planes, and the combination of spending more or less an entire day in transit and the nine-hour time difference are seriously taking the wind out of him.

“You mustn’t nap,” Sherlock says sternly.

“I know.”

“You have to sleep on the local time.”

“I know!”

“It’s only seven in the evening.”

John shuts his eyes and contemplates murder.

The Russian concierge finishes up with his previous customer and gestures Sherlock forwards with a smile. Sherlock launches into a long string of Russian that John wouldn’t be able to follow even if he was fully conscious. He gets out his phone and pulls up Instagram, which won’t load—he turned off his data plan until he can get a local SIM card, and he doesn’t have the hotel wifi info yet. He groans and considers praying to a God he doesn’t believe in.

At the counter, Sherlock’s Russian is growing more aggravated, while the concierge maintains a quiet cool.. John’s heart sinks. There’s a problem with the reservation, or the credit card, or Sherlock has mortally offended the concierge somehow.

The discussion reaches a crescendo, before Sherlock finally slaps his hand down upon the keycard on the counter with one last line spat at the concierge and whirls about.

“Get your bags,” he snaps.

Befuddled, John follows, dragging his suitcase behind him.

Not until the elevator doors close behind them does Sherlock say through gritted teeth, “There was a problem with our reservation.”

“I mean, clearly we have a room.”

“Yes,” says Sherlock tersely, “with one bed.”

John’s heart jumps into his throat. “Oh. Uh. Do they have—”

“They do not have camp beds.”

“Oh.”

The elevator reaches their floor and the doors slide open. Sherlock strides down the hallway and John tries to keep up, his overtired mind racing.

It’s fine. Totally fine. Right? Why shouldn’t it be? It’ll be a king size bed. They can basically ignore each other in a king size bed. And Sherlock’s sleeping habits are so arcane that John probably won’t even know he’s there. John will go to sleep at the earliest possible moment, Sherlock will stay up until the wee hours of the morning, and the only time they’ll have to confront the fact that they’re in the same bed will be when they get up, which is when they’re leaving the bed. It’s fine.

“Maybe there’s a reclining chair,” Sherlock mutters, waving the keycard in front of the door.

He shoulders the door open and grimaces. They both go in and shut the door behind them. Sure enough, it’s a small room dominated by a king size bed. The only other furniture is a stiff-looking, minimalist armchair, an end table on each side of the bed, and a small desk with a rolling office chair.

“Or I can ask for additional pillows and blankets and sleep in the bathtub,” Sherlock says.

“Sherlock,” John says, “don’t be ridiculous. You’re not going to sleep in the bathtub. You’re about a hundred feet tall. It’s a big bed, it’ll be fine.”

John almost believes it too.

“Well,” Sherlock says hesitantly, “if you don’t mind?”

“I have had much worse sleeping situations.”

“If it isn’t inconvenient.”

Since when does Sherlock care about what’s inconvenient for John? No matter. They had a problem, and now the problem is solved. There they are.

———

As it turns out, it is fine.

Sherlock gets to bed well after John and gets up before him. It’s like he never slept at all. They meet Greg in the lobby downstairs to go to the rink for the first public practice. He is holding three coffees and has a slightly manic look about his eyes.

“You ready for this?” he says. “It’s properly go time.”

John grins. “Let’s go.”

In the cab, Greg distributes the coffees while Sherlock launches into his pep talk. “The perception is that you’re the underdog,” he says. “But you’ve got the technical content and none of your competitors have a guaranteed good performance here. There’s a big batch of Russian men, but they’ve been more risk-taking than consistent lately. Yuriev is trying the quad lutz, but only God knows if he’ll land it, and if they judge fairly you’ll have the edge on PCS. Daisuke Habu has a higher technical content than the rest of the field, but he tends to peak late in the season, so I wouldn’t worry too much. Loginov is a wild card. He’s artistic enough to often make up for his lower tech, but his jumps aren’t consistent.”[1]

“Yeah,” John says, half listening.

“Don’t get in his head!” Greg says. “He’s going to see them all in practice.”

“He’s not,” John says, “because he’s going to be focusing on himself and no one else.”

“Solid plan,” says Greg. “Sherlock, you can chew your nails over the competition.”

“I don’t chew my nails,” Sherlock mutters.

True to his word, they get to the rink, John does his off ice warm up, gets his equipment on, and gets on the ice. He recognizes a few of the other athletes in the locker room, but they don’t talk to him and he doesn’t initiate conversation. No one is interested in talking out on the ice.

Greg and Sherlock are by the boards. Sherlock gives him a nod and Greg gives him a thumbs up and a grin. John nods back, then gets to work.

———

There's a steady buzz in Sherlock's ears, a current running over his skin like a steady static shock. He takes another swig from his coffee and watches John warming up with a few double jumps.

"You don't need to be nervous," Lestrade says.

"I'm not nervous."

"Okay, yeah, sure."

"There's nothing to be nervous about. He's in excellent condition, and the pressure of a proper Grand Prix competition will only improve his performance. He's great under pressure. Better, even."

"Yeah."

Out on the ice, John has moved onto his more challenging jumps. He falls on a quad toe right off the bat. Sherlock winces.

The omnipresent concern that lurks in the back of his mind flexes. There are so many factors out of their control. There are so many people who can be influenced.

"Just remember," Lestrade says, "you've done right by him."

Sherlock starts, his head twisting around as he blinks blankly at Lestrade. "What?"

"You," Lestrade says patiently, "have done your best for him."

Sherlock swallows. There are many responses he can think of to this patently ridiculous statement, running largely along the lines of  _ "how could you possibly know anything of the sort?"  _ or _ "I hope so." _

But for some reason, instead of saying any of them, he says, "I suppose I should thank you."

"I suppose I should say you're welcome."

They both turn back to the ice in time to see John cleanly land a massive quad lutz, to the tune of gasps and applause from the spectators watching the practice. A satisfied grin curls at the corners of Sherlock's mouth.

At the end of the practice, John gets off the ice and pushes his damp hair up out of his face. Something warm drops into Sherlock's stomach.

"Let's do this," John says, positively beaming.

———

Just like the night before, Sherlock is still at his computer when John goes to bed.

"Don't stay up too late, now," John says in a mock-scolding voice. "We've got a big day tomorrow."

Sherlock waves a hand without turning around.

John drops off immediately. It's a talent of his.

At some point, John dreams.

He is performing his free skate in the rink here in Moscow, but it's going so badly. He jumps, and the takeoff is all wrong, and he comes down badly and falls. He gets back up, stumbles, keeps going. Jumps again, falls. On every jump he falls, and falls, as if his legs won't hold him up. Finally he falls and can't even get back up, there's something wrong, and he just lies there on the ice and looks towards the boards, and there is Sherlock, but not alone—there is a man there next to him whispering in his ear, and the man has his hand on Sherlock's throat, not squeezing, just resting, threatening, and Sherlock's eyes are wide and his face is stunned and terrified, and Jim Moriarty looks right at John and says—

"John!"

John's eyes fly open and he gasps in a breath. He feels like he's been running for miles.

The room is entirely dark. It has the feeling of being in that gray area between very late and very early. John closes his eyes again and breathes.

"Sorry," he says, when he feels like he's regained his grip on himself. "Hope I didn't wake you."

"I wasn't asleep," says Sherlock.

"I don't want to talk about it."

John can't turn his head to look at him. The moment he does, they will be talking about this.

"Was it...what…"

"I mean it," John says firmly.

"If it's going to affect—"

"It's not."

The covers rustle, and the weight on the mattress shifts. Footsteps pad over to the bathroom, then the sound of a glass being filled with water.

Sherlock returns and sets the glass on John's side of the bed. He sits up and takes it.

"Thanks."

Sherlock sits in the uncomfortable chair, leans against the arm, and looks out the window while John drinks. The ambient lighting of the Moscow autumn night is just enough to illuminate Sherlock's edges. John can't make out the finer features of him, only the luminescent outline. His curls glow faintly. They look soft, like they could be easily crushed between careless fingers.

"I wanted to say," Sherlock says, picking through the words, "before tomorrow, that I still mean every word I said about you."

John smiles humorlessly. "Which ones? You've said a lot."

"You know."

"I genuinely don't."

Sherlock grimaces. "You...are capable of more than you know. You can take this competition. You can win this and more."

John lets out a little, nervous laugh. "Bet you say that about all the girls."

"I've never said it about anyone in my life," Sherlock says evenly.

Blood rushes to John's cheeks. What, exactly, is he supposed to say to that? What did he do to earn Sherlock's faith? How is he ever, ever supposed to measure up to Sherlock's image of him?

Sherlock saves him from having to say anything. "You should go to sleep."

"Yeah."

John lies back down and pulls the covers up over himself and waits for Sherlock to come back to bed. But Sherlock doesn't move. He must be just sitting there, looking out the window at the chilly night.

The words come to John just before he falls asleep. He turns his head towards Sherlock and murmurs, "I hope I can be the person you think I am."

John can't really hear what Sherlock says in response. He is already slipping into sleep.

———

Sherlock is very probably going to be sick.

The first group has come and gone, to mixed results. John is set to skate first in the second group, which at least means he'll still be warm. They're waiting to go out for the warmup now, John and five other athletes lined up at the door. He's bouncing on his heels to keep his blood up and his face is drawn tight. There are a hundred things spinning through Sherlock's head to say, a hundred things he wants John to remember. He doesn't dare say them now, and break John's focus.

The announcement comes on: "Please welcome the skaters to the ice!" A volunteer opens the door, and the athletes skate out, some slaloming, some stroking, trying to make the most of every second of ice time. They line up to be introduced. John's name is called first, to some applause. Less than for the two Russians who are announced after him. It is their home turf, after all, and who remembers John Watson from nearly a decade ago?

The last name is called and the skaters break for their warmups. John rockets across the rink, getting a feel for the ice underneath him. Sherlock would like to get a feel for the solid ground underneath him. It feels like it's crumbling under his feet.

"Worse when it's not you, isn't it?" Lestrade murmurs.

Sherlock clenches his teeth. "I can't do  _ anything," _ he hisses.

"You've already done everything. It's up to him now, and he's got it, hasn't he?" Lestrade nods towards John, who's lapped the ice and is now building up speed for a jump. Bile rises in Sherlock's throat as John lifts a foot and angles his body for an axel. He jumps—a clean triple, to cheers from the crowd. "Look at him. He's going to be fine."

Sherlock breathes in a shaky breath. "Yes. He's going to be fine."

It's not that he lacks faith in John. It's that he lacks faith in everyone else. Skating is scored by people, after all.

John has unzipped his team USA jacket and is skating towards them. He passes it off to Sherlock without looking at him and skates away again. Sherlock's stomach swoops.

There's upbeat pop music playing over the speakers. Sherlock loathes it like he's never hated anything before in his life.

The announcer says, "Skaters, there is one minute remaining in your warmup."

"God," Sherlock sighs.

He's leaning forward against the boards, one hand clenched against the wall and the other at his side holding John's skate guards. Lestrade reaches over and pats his hand briefly. It's not even long enough for anyone to notice, but it quiets him some.

The warmup ends. John skates over to the boards with everyone else, but he doesn't put on his skate guards and step off. Instead, he stops in front of Lestrade and Sherlock. His head is down. Sherlock knows what his face looks like without even seeing it. Still drawn, still tight.

Lestrade leans in and is talking low and fast in John's ear. John nods. His whole body is taut with energy.

Lestrade steps back and nods to Sherlock. There is a split second in which Sherlock is frozen, unsure of what to do or say or how.

He leans in and speaks, and the words come. "I'm already proud of what you've done."

John nods. His expression does not change. Except, when Sherlock looks more closely, for around the corners of his mouth, which tick up just the tiniest bit.

The announcer calls John's name, and he skates to the center of the ice and takes his starting position: straight back, arms at his sides, head down. Sherlock holds his breath.

[ The music begins ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsvuipGq2ns) , and John moves.

His head comes up, and immediately Sherlock sees a different skater. His face is not the one he saw only moments ago. It's naked and unashamed, and it translates down from his face to his limbs as they extend, pushing off into the simple choreographic movements that take him from center ice out to the far end. Aside from the music and the scratch of blades on ice, the rink is silent.

As John builds up speed, Sherlock knows his first jump is coming, the quad lutz, but he can't bring himself to worry just yet. He is watching, as John reaches out and the full line of his arms unfolds. Then John leans onto his outside edge and lifts his back foot, and Sherlock holds his breath.

John jumps, and Sherlock stands up on his toes and raises his eyebrows as if that will lift John higher in the air and straighten out his axis—but it doesn't, and on the landing John slides out and falls. But even the fall is graceful and smooth, and John is quickly back on his feet.

The music is building, the voice smoky, the strings high and soft. John pulls into a spin, the fingers of his extended hand moving with the notes. Sherlock remembers halfway through to count the number of rotations on each position, to calculate the level, but just as he does John is swinging out of the spin, stepping, turning, and hopping into the air, then dropping into a low sit spin.

He exits into a series of steps that take him to the far end of the rink, and he starts his crossovers that lead into the spread eagle, then the entry for his combination. Sherlock slaps his hands onto the boards and squeezes.

The quad toe is clean, but John wobbles just the tiniest bit on the landing—Sherlock hisses in a breath—but he gets off the triple toe anyways. It's tight, but it's there, and John saves his balance on the exit by stepping out into a spread eagle. Sherlock balls his hands into fists and pounds one into the wall just twice. He hears Lestrade nearby growling, "Atta boy!"

There's just one more jump left, and Sherlock isn't concerned about it at all. John doesn't even need to build up much speed, so this is the most complex of their transitions. It means the jump seems to come out of nowhere—John is nimbly twisting across the ice, then he turns and simply leaps off the ice into his triple axel. It's nearly perfect: height, distance, and comes down clean, with a beautifully extended free leg. Sherlock whoops and throws a fist into the air, and the slow build of the music reaches a crescendo as the strings accelerate and the singer wails, and John takes two steps and throws himself forwards.

John is exquisite, absolutely flying through steps and turns, feeling the music in every inch of his body. He leans, he twists, he flings himself into the next movement as if he had nothing to fear at all. Sherlock is entranced. Sherlock is doomed. And then John drops down into a  [ hydroblade ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/2018_Winter_Olympics_-_Gala_Exhibition_-_Photo_282.jpg) on a deep curve, his whole body close to the ice with one leg extended at a seemingly impossible angle and one hand skimming over the ice. He reaches out as if there is something just out of his grasp, and for a split second his eyes meet Sherlock's.

Sherlock is riveted in place. He gasps, but he cannot move.

John rises up and whips his leg around over and over and over until he pulls his body into a camel spin, his rear leg and body forming a line so straight you could balance a level on it. As the music fades into something softer and gentler again, his leg curves around, and then he reaches back to grab his blade and pull his leg upwards.

The music is almost nothing now. On the very last, incomplete measure, John steps out to stop his revolution and throws a hand forwards, as if trying to stop something coming at him, or maybe grab hold of something slipping away.

Lestrade shouts something and punches the air. John doesn't move at first, just stands in place, panting for breath. Then the audience roars to life, and John drops his arm and grins, looking both abashed and pleased. He wipes his face and skates towards the exits, dodging the stuffed animals and other items being chucked onto the ice.

Lestrade meets John at the door, pulls him into a hug, thumps him on the back, and half-yells, "Good boy!"

John smiles, then looks around, as if—oh, it's Sherlock, he's looking for Sherlock. When he finds him, his smile splits into a full-on grin. He's absolutely beaming, giving off light like he's the sun itself.

Sherlock is hopelessly, helplessly lost.

"Come on, let's head over," John says, as if the world is still in its orbit.

Sherlock follows them over into the kiss and cry. He can't speak, and he can't bear to think. He'll crunch numbers, he'll work out what they can expect for John's score, and maybe then he'll calm the rapid fluttering of his heartbeat. The leader is sitting on an 89.74. John could conceivably outscore that, but can he with those two mistakes?

The audience is chattering, a steady buzz in the background, and upbeat pop music is playing, which makes Sherlock want to murder everyone. Lestrade is talking to John, something about how whatever happens in the short, they can make up for it in the long, but Sherlock is calculating. All of John's jumps were fully rotated, but how much did they lose for the fall and the wobbly combination? Some of the turns in the step sequence were a little flat, and Sherlock isn't sure he got all of his necessary rotations into a couple of his spins. Did he lose levels? Can he afford to lose levels?

"The scores, please."

The crowd quiets. John and Lestrade both turn towards the screen. Sherlock clasps his hands together and squeezes.

"John Watson from the United States has earned 91.38 points for..."

The rest of the announcement is drowned out in cheers. Sherlock nods emphatically, the anxiety flowing into relief and exhilaration. Lestrade shouts, "Yes!" and pounds John on the back. John ducks his head, grinning at Lestrade, then the ground, then Sherlock. Head swells up in Sherlock's chest, taking up so much space he's afraid he may explode.

John leans in. His chest presses against Sherlock's arm, which bursts into pins and needles. "Does anyone here have the base value to beat that?"

Sherlock can't comprehend the question for a second, but then it goes through. He shakes his head. There is a longer answer, but the words have deserted him.

They must gather up their things and head out, but Sherlock can't remember any of it. All at once he's standing in a hallway backstage with Lestrade, and Lestrade is turning to him and saying, "How was that for you? Fuckin' ace, right?"

He's still smiling like everything is normal, like Sherlock isn't humming with emotion and the universe is still in its right position.

"Yes," is all Sherlock can say.

———

John is still vibrating when he gets out of the shower and puts on his street clothes. God it feels so  _ good _ to skate like that. Even with mistakes, he's fairly confident that that he's prouder of that program than any other he's ever performed. He could feel the music, and how every movement connected to it. Sherlock really is an incomparable choreographer. What he creates is difficult as hell, but Christ, isn't it rewarding when you get it right?

John gathers up his things and heads out. Greg has disappeared, so it's just Sherlock on his phone. He looks like a lost model, in his well-fitted suit with his artfully tousled curls. They're a little frayed, as if Sherlock has been running his fingers through them, the way he does when he's nervous.

"Hey," John says.

Sherlock looks up.

His eyes are wide and his expression is unguarded, so much so that something slips loose in John. Suddenly he sees Sherlock for everything he is all at once: the strength and fragility, the the talent and the drive, the pain and the beauty. Oh, God, John sees Sherlock's beauty, and he will never miss it again. John is sick with how preternaturally gorgeous his friend is.

John could kiss him, right now, if Sherlock wanted it. He loves him, in this instant, and he doesn't know if he can do anything else ever again.

But Sherlock trusts him too much for that.

John swallows. "Head out and wait for the small medal ceremony?" he asks.

John is impressed with how steady his voice is when it comes out.

Sherlock, blessedly, doesn't seem to notice anything at all. "Let's," he says.

———

Sherlock does not come back to their hotel room that night.

There's the press conference, the small medal ceremony, the drawing for free skate order, then dinner. Throughout their meal, Sherlock says nothing, and just picks at his salad while John and Greg discuss the day and what they can expect tomorrow. It's exactly the sort of conversation that Sherlock generally dominates. John doesn't, can't dwell on it too much. He can't really bring himself to even look at Sherlock.

About a third of the way into his salad, Sherlock abruptly stands. "I'm off," he says. "John, don't wait up."

His tone is oddly stiff and formal. "Uh, okay," John says.

Sherlock stalks off.

"He'll be in the exercise room," says Greg. "I'll check on him later to make sure he doesn't kill himself."

John frowns. "What?"

"He's liable to run for so long that he falls over. Surprised you haven't seen him at it."

"Oh, generally when we're at any kind of exercise facility, Sherlock is doing half of what I do and spending the rest of the time berating me."

"Sounds about right. Yeah, he never learned how to manage stress, so he just relies on doping himself up with exercise endorphins."

"He's that worked up?"

Greg snorts. "I thought he was about to shed his skin, he was so jittery during your performance."

John ducks his head to hide his smile.

When he goes up to the hotel room twenty or so minutes later, Sherlock is still not there. He continues not to be there throughout the evening, until John finally gives up and goes to bed. Even then, he can't find any sort of respite. His mind is still spinning.

There's no way around it: John Watson has feelings for Sherlock Holmes.

There's also no way around how completely, entirely impossible pursuing those feelings would be. Sherlock is his coach, for one. For another, he's completely uninterested in human relationships. Outside of John and maybe Greg, he has no friends. He doesn't even really have people he doesn't hate besides them. There's no way he would want to  _ date _ .

Then there's Sherlock's...prior history. He referred to his other sexual experiences as distasteful necessities. John has no way of knowing if that's because of the circumstances, or if Sherlock has little interest in sex altogether.

Lastly, there's the part John hates to admit. If he is going to compete at the levels Sherlock thinks he is, he'll be in the public eye. John can imagine the gay jokes now. Hell, they already make those jokes about Sherlock, and they're caustic and cruel. John couldn't do that to him. He can't afford to do that to himself.

So instead, John lies on the large, half-empty bed, and lets his heart hurt for what he cannot have.

———

The situation, as it is, is untenable.

Sherlock can hardly look at John now. He certainly can't sleep  _ in the same bed _ with him. It'll be fine. It's hardly the first time he's stayed up through the night.

He runs and he runs until his hair is limp and sticky with sweat, and then he keeps running. When his legs are ready to give out, he goes to the weight machines until he can stand steady again, then goes back to the treadmill.

What is he going to do?

It must be faced: he cannot keep coaching John.

The thought makes his heart throb painfully against his sternum, but Sherlock is nothing if not ruthlessly realistic. How can he coach John if he can't look at him, or speak to him? It's of little import. Lestrade will do a fine job with John on his own. He can find new professionals to perform the roles that Sherlock has been filling, and assemble the standard small army of nutritionists, physical therapists, personal trainers, and choreographers. He knows the relevant people already.

Yes, John will do fine without Sherlock.

So what if the thought of John without him makes Sherlock's breath catch in his throat? His feelings are inconsequential in this scenario. John's success is paramount. John cannot succeed with Sherlock in this state.

Sherlock will tell him after, though. Best not to interrupt his focus before the competition.

———

John is skating last.

The first half of the competition comes and goes. He skates out to be introduced with the rest of the skaters in the second group, warms up, then retreats into a back hallway to keep himself going. Greg and Sherlock leave him to it.

John turns his music up loud enough to drown out the dampened, distant sound of the announcer and the music and the applause. He shuts out all thoughts of the other competitors, or the judges, or the scores. He jogs lightly in place and puts his mind on himself, and his body, and his performance.

Strength. Power. Sensuality. John has all of that, and he's going to prove it.

He hops up and down a few times, then walks through the entry into the quad lutz. Pull in tight, straight and tall, nail the knee bend on the exit.

Someone taps on his shoulder. He flinches, then pulls out his earbuds.

"It's time," Greg says.

John gets his skates on, stands up, flexes at the ankles a few times, does a few test hops, and follows Greg.

Sherlock is waiting at the boards. John takes off his jacket and skate guards and hands them to him.

"Thanks," he says automatically.

"You're welcome," Sherlock says, sounding strangely flat.

The previous skater leaves the ice, and John steps on. He's about to start skating when Sherlock calls his name.

"John!"

John stops and turns.

Sherlock is at the boards, his face pale as death.

"Just a second," he says.

John skates over. They're so close, with only the twelve inches or so of wall in between them.

Sherlock doesn't lean in, like a coach usually might. He stays ramrod straight, eyes wide and lips thin, and speaks, softly enough that the cameras and surrounding people cannot pick it up.

"You are worth everything I gave up," Sherlock murmurs.

John's eyes widen. He nods, then he turns and skates to center ice.

Afterwards, he doesn't remember much of what happens during his performance. He remembers the music, though, the way the first note struck every nerve in his body at once. He soars with the violin and dances down the clusters of piano notes. He stumbles once or twice, but he does not fall. It doesn't matter. The music matters, and performing the music.

How did it take him so long to hear this music for what it is? So plaintive, so longing, so intricate. The piano and violin tell their separate stories, then come together into a lush, striking soundscape, virtuosic runs stepping high and low. Like all tangos, it's a love story, and a tempestuous one.

Strength. Power. Sensuality.

The music builds to a crescendo as John swoops out of a spin and into the final few steps, and he pulls up straight, head following the line of his outstretched arm—which leads straight to Sherlock.

John freezes.

Sherlock's hands are pressed to his mouth and his eyes are wide. Even from half the rink away, John can see how he is trembling. He can see how Sherlock is beautiful, and terrified, and so deeply, deeply in love.

As the audience rises to its feet and applauds, the realization blindsides John like a tanker truck. Sherlock wrote that music. He made it for John, for this, for  _ them. _

He drops his arms and takes his bow, wondering how long he was still. It couldn't have been long. It felt like years.

When he steps off the ice, Greg pounds him on the back again, and they make their way to the kiss and cry.

"The scores, please."

Without looking at him, John takes Sherlock's hand.

When they say the number, Sherlock's hand tightens around him straightaway, and John knows before the announcer even calls it that he's won.

———

Sherlock is going to tell him.

Any moment now, they'll be alone for a second, and he can tell John. But there's interviews, and volunteers milling about, altogether just so many people, until all of a sudden John is taking his arm and pulling him in to murmur in his ear.

"I—John, what?" Sherlock stammers.

“It’s about us, isn’t it?” John says quietly, too quietly for anyone around them to hear.

Sherlock’s cheeks flame red. “What?”

“Your song. The one you wrote. It’s about us.”

Sherlock’s heart hammers in his throat. This is it, John has seen, John knows, there is no turning back.

“Is it?” John says.

Sherlock opens his mouth. “Yes,” he whispers.

John is going to speak, and Sherlock cannot possibly hear what he has to say next—

—and just then a runner dashes up and says to John, “It’s time,” and he’s gone, and Sherlock is still there watching as he is led away to line up with the other medalists.

Sherlock does not watch the medal ceremony. He does not think he can look at John as they drape the gold medal around his neck and play the Star-Spangled Banner and maintain his composure. He isn't maintaining his composure even now.

John knows.

John knows, so what is he going to do? What are either of them going to do? It's completely impossible, the two of them. Entirely out of the question. There's the public relations question, for one. Regardless of how enlightened the rest of the world has become, skating is still decidedly a typical sport in the way it treats queer athletes. How could he expose John to that, when John is already in so fragile a situation?

Sherlock lurks in the locker room, working himself into a lather, as athletes come and get changed into their street clothes and go. It feels like hours before the medalists return. John is being gently ribbed by the Russian bronze medalist, something about John being an old man. They look aside at Sherlock, who looks down at his phone to make himself seem unimportant.

Finally, finally, the rest of the men clear out, and he and John are alone.

John gets to his feet, unfolding to his full height, just under Sherlock’s chin. They’re standing no closer or farther away than they always do, but the distance between them seems both impossibly close and unbearably far.

Sherlock is trembling. He can feel it, but he can’t stop it, this hateful quivering in his limbs and chest and stomach. He’s more nervous than he’s ever felt in his entire life.

“I,” he starts to say, then stops, and tries again. “I couldn’t tell you,” he says. “I didn’t want to distract you, I didn’t want to know you didn’t feel the same way, I didn’t want to know even if you  _ did, _ because the rumors—if we were—we would have to hide, and I didn’t want to know you didn’t want that.”

John steps closer, and oh, it would be a matter of only leaning in to close the distance between them.

“I’m an idiot,” he says. “I can’t believe—how long have you felt this way?”

Sherlock swallows. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully. “It’s like you said. It wasn’t all at once, it was...slowly. Though truth be told, I think it’s been since I got on a plane to Pennsylvania.”

“And here I’ve been thinking you were this untouchable creature,” John says wonderingly.

He reaches up and combs his fingers through the back of Sherlock’s hair, and Sherlock is going to hyperventilate, he is going to faint, he is going to combust at the contact. He can feel every distinct finger and the heat of John’s hand. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch. And then John’s other hand comes up and cups his cheek, and he sighs with relief.

“Can’t believe I’ve been missing the chance to see you like this,” John says, awed. “You’re so beautiful.”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Does he put them on John? He feels like a giant, useless mannequin.

“You can touch me,” John says softly.

“I,” Sherlock stammers. “I...I don’t…”

“Around my waist. Just like when we were working on my steps.”

Hesitantly, still trembling, Sherlock takes John’s waist. It’s like he said, he’s done this before, but not like this, not with John touching him as well.

“You’ve never kissed anyone before,” John says. It’s not a question.

“Never,” Sherlock whispers. “I don’t know how.”

“Don’t worry,” John murmurs. “I know you’re a quick study.”

He pulls Sherlock’s head down to his and kisses him.

The anxious tension in Sherlock’s chest bursts into heat and energy. He lets go of John’s waist without even thinking and takes John’s face in his hands as if to pull him closer, closer. John’s lips are soft and warm and he’s stroking his thumb back and forth over Sherlock’s cheek, which makes Sherlock’s lips fall just ever so slightly open. John’s tongue slips into Sherlock’s mouth and he lets out a shaky, breathless moan.

The kiss is slow, and sweet, and tender, and Sherlock is going to pieces. His knees are wobbly underneath him, so it’s a relief when John puts his palms flat on his chest and slowly walks them backwards until they’re up against the wall. Sherlock runs his hands back to the back of John’s neck and into his short, blond hair. John is holding his waist and squeezing, and Sherlock is on fire, he wants so much, so soon.

John breaks the contact between their mouths, and Sherlock whines and chases him back.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” John soothes. “I just need to catch my breath.” He winds his arms around Sherlock’s back and pulls them together, so there’s no longer any separation between their bodies at all. “God, you’re so beautiful. Fuck. You’re incredible.”

Sherlock scratches his fingers through John’s hair, trying not to seem frantic. “John,” he says, more pleadingly than he wanted to, “I—I need—”

“Yeah,” John sighs, and kisses him again.

It’s much better against the wall. Sherlock can lean against it and spread his legs a little so John’s feet can shuffle between his and they can get impossibly closer. Kissing isn’t as intimidating as he’d thought after all. It seems to be as much with the rest of his body as it is with his mouth, and so much of it comes naturally.

John is hot and strong and  _ here _ against him, and before he realizes it, Sherlock finds his hips are swaying, just a little, as his blood redirects and pools and he’s—

“Oh,” he says, jerking back.

John doesn’t let him. “No, it’s good,” he says. “I want to feel you.”

There’s a sudden surge of feeling, and Sherlock lets John press him flatter against the wall and kiss him again.

There’s more to it now. John’s hands are around Sherlock’s waist and Sherlock’s around John, and there’s movement, the ever-so-slight rocking of hips as they both seek out the other. Sherlock gasps as he feels John’s answering hardness.

“Yeah,” John growls against him.

Sherlock’s head drops back and John’s mouth trails down his exposed neck, which Sherlock has never felt before and God, oh God, he can’t stand it. His hands flutter up to John’s shoulders, bracing, as John scrapes his teeth over Sherlock’s artery and Sherlock just cries out in bliss.

“Wait,” John says breathlessly, panting against Sherlock’s skin. “We’ve—fuck.”

“John,” Sherlock says, “I want—”

“Yeah. We...we really can’t do this here.”

For the first time in the last two days, Sherlock thinks he has his feet under him. He taps John under his chin to bring his head up.

“Then,” Sherlock says, “take me back to the hotel.”

John’s eyes are dark and heavy-lidded. “Yeah.” He nods. “Tell me what you want.”

Sherlock’s cheeks color, but he doesn’t hold back. “I want you to take me to bed.”

* * *

 

1I lied a tiny bit. Daisuke Habu is a tribute to three fantastic Japanese skaters. There have been two excellent Daisukes recently, Takahashi and Murakami. Daisuke Takahashi recently came out of retirement after four years, seemingly just 'cause! "Habu" is an alternate reading of the kanji for "Hanyu," Yuzuru Hanyu being the first repeat Olympic champion since 1952, holder of a bunch of world records and my heart and soul.[return to text]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know at this point the last thing you care about is what the damn skating looked like, but if you're trying to picture John's programs here, [Romain Ponsart](https://youtu.be/dc7UUdE0s6k) or [Kevin Aymoz](https://youtu.be/oBG80d1yjZc) skating to In This Shirt have similar feels to what I'm picturing, and Boyang Jin's [Tango Amore](https://youtu.be/j670DwFV6ZY) is close to John's free skate.
> 
> Next chapter is nearly complete already, so you don't need to wait long!


	12. To Know You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've done that before," Sherlock says.
> 
> John smiles. "Ah, yeah."

There's nothing unusual about two men taking a cab together. If the driver is sharp, he might notice the men in the backseat are smiling rather stupidly, and looking at each other when they hope the other isn't looking, then looking back out the window to continue smiling stupidly. Sherlock hopes the driver isn't looking.

They arrive at the hotel and get as far as the door of their room. The whole way up, Sherlock is vibrating, intensely aware of his body and John's.

"I've got to run out and grab some, uh, things," John says. "There's a pharmacy across the street. You put our stuff in the room and wait for me."

He looks both ways down the hall, cranes his neck up to peck Sherlock on the cheek, and is off.

Sherlock hovers there for a moment, struck by the casual intimacy. Then he shakes his head, opens the door, and drags their things inside.

The room feels different, somehow. The single king size bed seems smaller. A lump starts to rise in Sherlock's throat.

What does he do while he waits? Should he be...preparing himself, somehow? Putting on attractive lingerie? God, no. A shower? A shower should do.

Sherlock turns the water on just as hot as he thinks he can stand, strips off his clothes, and gets in. He flinches at the heat and turns it down. The transition from Moscow in October to a hot shower is challenging. As he washes, his mind turns to the other challenges ahead of him.

Theoretically, he knows what to expect. He has internet access and has engaged in sexual activities with multiple partners. However, his previous experiences were somewhat rushed and based entirely around his partner's pleasure. He's never gotten off with another person. He wasn't always even aroused.

John, however, is different. John only has to smile at him, and Sherlock's blood ignites. Kissing him was nearly too much. What will sex be like? Surely one person can't feel so much and survive.

All that aside, what if he is bad at sex? His first few attempts at oral sex could be flatteringly described as "clumsy." What if he is so bad at it that John never wants to have sex with him again?

Sherlock furiously scrubs shampoo through his hair and doesn't think about sex at all.

Another problem arises when he gets out of the shower. What does he wear? He’s soon going to be wearing nothing. Should he come out naked? His cheeks flush red. Absolutely not. Towel, then? No, still not enough. His eyes fall upon the robe hung on the back of the door. Perfect. He pulls it on and ties it. His hands are trembling. He shakes them out with some irritation. It’s only John. What does he think is going to happen? It isn’t as if John is going to see him naked and suddenly change his mind and leave. Is it?

Sherlock puts his hand on the door handle.

_ Open the door. _

He shuts his eyes and swallows.

_ You have to open the door. _

Gritting his teeth, he pushes the handle down and opens the door.

And there is John, lying on the bed on his back with his legs crossed at the knee, idly scrolling on his phone. He’s still in the warmup gear he put on after the medal ceremony. His Team USA jacket is hung on the back of the chair.

It’s such a familiar sight that the knot in Sherlock’s stomach instantly relaxes. He knows this. He’s seen John in those clothes a thousand times, had his hands on him over the thin black spandex.

Sherlock would like to have his hands on John now.

John sets his phone on the bedside table, looks up, and smiles. Oh, that smile. Sherlock’s heart clenches just to see it directed at anyone, and at him? He could perish on the spot.

"Hey," John says, still smiling.

Sherlock clears his throat. "Um. Yes. Hey."

"I’d roll down the covers and pat them and waggle my eyebrows suggestively, but it looks like you’d flee the country if I did."

"Oh! I, er...I don’t mean to."

John rolls out of bed and walks over. Sherlock can feel his palms getting sweatier with every step.

Then John is there, and he’s taking Sherlock’s hands and putting them at his waist, and oh, Sherlock must die of this.

"It’s okay that you’re nervous," John murmurs. "It’s alright. I’m going to make this good for you."

He combs his fingers back through Sherlock’s damp curls, leans up as he guides Sherlock down, and kisses him.

Sherlock’s heart throbs painfully in his chest. Surely one person can’t feel this much. What is he expected to do? He pulls back a little and breathes a soft little sigh against John’s mouth.

"Yeah, that’s it," John whispers, and goes back to kissing him.

Sherlock wants more, so he takes more, moving tentative hands down from John’s waist to his hips. John hums deep, and suddenly John’s hands have moved as well, sliding down Sherlock’s head and shoulders and arms and to his waist. That’s—good. That’s very good.

John pulls back again to breathe. He’s breathing harder now, his forehead pressed to Sherlock’s so Sherlock can’t meet his eyes.

"Tell me you want more," he pants. "Tell me."

He has to ask, he has to take this from Sherlock? Why can’t he just know? Can he not just give Sherlock what he needs without extracting this from him?

"Please. Tell me what you want."

"I want you to touch me," Sherlock blurts out.

"Tell me where. God, Sherlock, please, I want to."

"Do it."

"I need you to ask me."

Sherlock can’t, he will be able to, he knows, but right now he can’t—so he grabs John by the wrists and pulls him further in, guiding his hands back and down, over the curve of his arse. John cups and squeezes with a groan. Sherlock’s head falls back and he gasps, letting his weight rest on John’s solid body. He’s so hard already, his full length pressed against the flat planes of John’s stomach. John’s mouth fastens onto his neck as he kneads his handfuls.

"Jesus, fucking fantastic," John growls against Sherlock’s skin. "Your ass is incredible. So good,  _ fuck, _ you’re so good."

Sherlock is breathing so high and fast that he’s getting lightheaded. His hips are moving of their own accord along with John’s hands, undulating against John’s body. John’s mouth is at the bit of exposed chest in the V of Sherlock’s robe, scraping his teeth lightly over his collarbone and sucking a mark into the hollow at the top of his sternum.

Sherlock is making noises, these high, breathy vocalizations that he can’t seem to control. They are only inflaming John, who is moving with a kind of determination.

"That’s it," he is saying, "like that, yeah, come on, baby."

Heat is coiling in Sherlock’s pelvis, a nebulous sort of intent that’s building and building and taking up all the space in his body.

"Yes," he whispers. "Yes, yes, yes." John moans for his words, which only stokes the fire.

Sherlock realizes what is happening an instant before it does. His hands fly to John’s shoulders, and he tries to gasp out a, "Wait!" John looks at him quizzically, but it’s too late—Sherlock is clutching at him and pressing his pelvis tight to John’s body as his cock jerks and he comes all over the inside of the terrycloth robe.

What has Sherlock  _ done? _

He closes his eyes. "Don’t."

"Sherlock," John says gently.

"Just don’t."

"Can I please—"

"I don’t want to talk about it, let’s just go to sleep and—"

"Sherlock!" John lightly smacks Sherlock’s arse.

"Hey!" Sherlock snaps, opening his eyes to glare.

"If you’ll let me finish," says John, sounding infinitely patient.

Sherlock rolls his eyes, positive he’s still bright red around the cheeks. "Fine."

"I don’t want to go to sleep, as I’ve still got this to worry about," he says, taking one of Sherlock’s hands and placing it squarely over his erection. Sherlock’s own softening cock gives a half-hearted twitch.

"I can take care of that for you," Sherlock says in a determinedly matter-of-fact tone.

"I don’t want it ‘taken care of.’ I’ve got two good hands for that. I said I’d make you feel good." He leans in and kisses Sherlock’s lips, which still makes Sherlock feel like he might have an asthma attack. "I’m going to make you feel good."

"But—"

"I’m very patient," John says, "and a hard worker."

Another little shock jolts through Sherlock’s groin at the implications.

"So if you don’t mind," he says, and he’s slipping one hand into the open part of the robe, "I’d like to continue by getting us significantly less clothed."

John’s bare hand is pressed against Sherlock’s bare chest. Sherlock is trembling, both from the recent orgasm and from the almost unbearable intimacy. He has no control over what he says next.

"Yes," he whispers.

"Good," John says, and tugs the sash around the robe so that it falls open, pushes his hands back over Sherlock’s shoulders, and lets the robe fall.

That’s it. Sherlock is naked.

John is standing close enough that he can’t see anything, but in a moment he is going to step back to look at him, at his skinny, gangly body and softening prick and Sherlock will want to hide himself away in a cave somewhere, ideally underwater, very deep underwater, where no one will ever be able to see him again, because if John Watson laughs at him he will never recover.

John doesn’t step back. He doesn’t look down. He looks into Sherlock’s eyes, and smiles.

"Do mine now," he says.

Sherlock must have been the Dalai Lama in a past life to be trusted with undressing John Watson.

He blinks, swallows, and peels John’s shirt off over his head. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but never under these circumstances. John is so strong, all corded biceps and flat abs and well-formed pectorals, two brown nipples sharp enough to cut yourself on them. Sherlock would like to do just that.

"Keep going," John says huskily.

Feeling daring, Sherlock slides his flat hands from John’s waist down into the top of his spandex and underwear both, feeling the angular hip bones under his fingers. He breathes, the air shuddering in his chest.

"That’s it," John sighs.

Sherlock pushes down, down, until John takes over and rolls everything to his ankles, then steps out of his puddled clothing.

Sherlock’s eyes are shut. He wants to open them, to see, but he can’t seem to.

"Do you want to look at me?" John murmurs.

Sherlock’s mouth twists. "Yes," he whispers, "but I’m—I’m afraid."

John’s hands are warm around Sherlock’s waist. "There’s nothing to be afraid of." He kisses Sherlock, just once. "I’m here. I’m staying."

Sherlock whimpers, not really meaning to make any sound at all. He meant just to breathe, but his voice caught in his throat.

He opens his eyes, and John steps back.

Instantly Sherlock’s blood rushes all the faster. John is unbelievable, unattainable,  _ here, _ every square inch of smooth skin, every angle, every curve. And there is...that, jutting proudly from between the thatch of light brown hair between his legs, long and thick and leaking a pearlescent drop of fluid at the fat tip. Sherlock’s mouth waters and his insides clench.

"The full package isn’t much," John says modestly, "but I know I’ve got it where it matters." He lets one hand rest on his pelvic bone, thumb and hand forming half a frame that guides the eye inexorably in.

"It’s," Sherlock says, searching wildly for the applicable adjective. "It’s magnificent."

John smiles. Of course he’s unashamed in nudity. His eyes are drifting down now, over the miles of Sherlock on display. Sherlock finds he doesn’t want to grab the robe off the floor and cover himself up, because he wants to see what John’s face does next. It’s such an expressive face, and Sherlock is cherishing the privilege of being able to see what it does as his eyes flicker over Sherlock’s exposed form.

John’s eyes come to the bottom, then back up, and he smiles.

"Come to bed with me," he says.

Sherlock nods. "Yes," he whispers, and again: "Yes."

They roll the duvet down and climb onto the sheets. John rolls onto his back and smirks invitingly.

"Climb on," he says.

Sherlock blushes and blinks. "Uh. Shouldn’t we—I mean shouldn’t you—"

"I’ll show you what to do. Come on."

Sherlock swings his leg over John’s thighs and kneels over him.

"Come down," John says.

Sherlock braces his hands on either side of John’s head and leans down, until he has to bring his elbows down as well. Their faces are so close like this.

"That’s it," John whispers.

He cups Sherlock’s cheek and brings his head down and kisses him again, and again, and again.

Little shocks are skipping down Sherlock’s limbs with every little noise John makes in the back of his throat. John sounds like he wants him, like he wants him more than breathing. Sherlock could absolutely sink entirely into John just now, until their every nerve is one.

John’s breathing is getting ragged around the edges, and he’s squirming with a vague sort of disconnected need. Every time his mouth isn’t in use, he’s talking, ground-out, half-incomprehensible affirmatives.

"Yeah," he says once, and then "yes," and then "oh yes." He’s getting his voice underneath him in a way that makes Sherlock tremble. Finally, it comes: "Yeah, oh yeah, Sherlock. Wanna fuck you. Can I fuck you? Please, oh God, I wanna fuck you so bad."

Sherlock’s cock goes from half hard to fully erect so fast he sees white spots in the corners of his vision. "Yes," he gasps, before he’s given himself time to panic. "Yes, please, I want you to."

In an instant, John has him by the waist and is rolling him over. Sherlock thuds onto the mattress with an "oomph!"

"Sorry," John says, "little, uh, overexcited."

"John," is all Sherlock can say.

John puts a hand on each of Sherlock’s knees and gently, slowly, presses them outwards until they fall open. Sherlock’s hands are on his stomach, clasped together for strength.

"Have you ever touched yourself like this before?" John asks.

"A little," says Sherlock. "Just...a little touching. Nothing too big or deep."

"We’ll soon fix that," says John, which sounds ominous in a way Sherlock wants to experience again and again.

There is a tube on the nightstand, and a box, both of which Sherlock had not noticed in his obsession with John’s body. John picks up the tube and squeezes a bead out onto his first finger.

"Get a couple of the pillows and put them under your ass," John says, with a cheeky wink.

Sherlock huffs, but does drag two pillows from beside him, lifts his hips, stuffs them underneath of him, and lies back.

"Oh," he says, surprised.

The pillows push Sherlock's pelvis up and incline his legs to fall open a little wider. He feels very...exposed, just now. His legs twitch, as if to close and preserve his modesty, which is ridiculous.

"It’ll be fine," John promises. "It might feel a little strange, and maybe hurt just a little. You tell me if it’s too bad and you want me to stop."

Sherlock nods.

"I mean it," John says sternly. "I won’t be disappointed. I want to make you feel good, and I’d never forgive myself if I hurt you."

"Yes," Sherlock says hurriedly, wishing John would just do it already.

John reaches down and just touches his finger between Sherlock’s cheeks. Sherlock flinches.

"Sorry. Bit cold."

John rubs his finger up and down, and Sherlock unwinds a little. That’s...good. Not quite how he’d done it. Good, though.

"Remember to try and stay relaxed," John says. "Bear down a little. It helps."

Sherlock nods, not really understanding. John’s finger works his way further back.

"Relax," he says again, and dips in.

Sherlock clenches immediately. John stops.

"Okay?"

"Yeah," Sherlock says breathily. "Just...startled."

"Okay. Relax, now. Bear down."

Bear—oh! Sherlock obeys, and John’s finger pushes right in.

Oh! That’s…

"That’s good," Sherlock says.

"Good. Stay relaxed. Don’t tense up."

He starts to move, gentle flexing, some pulling out and pushing back in. Sherlock breathes in and out, in and out.

"That’s it."

Sherlock reaches down and just rests one hand over his hot, hard cock. The weight is a balm, and a tease.

"None of that," John says sternly, lifting the hand up and dropping it back on Sherlock’s stomach.

Sherlock whines.

"Oh, stop. I’ve got something for that in just a minute," he says.

He pulls his hand away—Sherlock grumbles—then moves down the bed a little, bends, and presses his finger in again.

John’s head is directly over Sherlock’s groin.

"Oh my God," Sherlock says to the ceiling.

"Tell me if you’re about to come," John says, leans down, and breathes over Sherlock’s erection.

A shiver runs down Sherlock’s entire body. "Oh."

John is working his finger in the same manner as before, but now Sherlock can feel his every hot exhalation against the sensitive skin of his cock. It’s an almost unbearable tease.

There’s a click. Sherlock wonders for a second what it could be, and then John has a second slick finger pressing against and pushing in. Sherlock makes a sharp little sound of surprise, which John cuts off by closing the gap and pressing his warm, wet mouth to Sherlock’s prick.

"Oh!" Sherlock’s hips buck.

John uses his free arm to press them down with the full weight of his body. He’s moving his fingers with more purpose now, an intentional curl and pull. Sherlock clutches at the sheets and squirms. John isn't really sucking him off at all, he's only sort of mouthing at Sherlock's shaft, but all the same, it's like nothing Sherlock's ever felt before. He rocks back into John's fingers, and forward into John's mouth. His entire being feels strung between those two points of contact.

Just when Sherlock has realized he's not even really noticing the intrusion anymore, John is pulling back, then pushing in with three fingers, which Sherlock does definitely feel. There's a moment of confusion, of  _ I don't know about this, _ but then John laves his tongue over the underside of Sherlock's cock and thought escapes him.

As John works him open, there are occasional moments of something more, of John brushing against something that makes Sherlock's breath drag and his toes curl. He knows the principle that's in action. Even so, he's reluctant to name it, to ask for what he wants. Even the brief, casual contact is exquisite.

Sherlock is just about to work up the courage to suggest that perhaps they could get on with the proceedings when John, on one pull outwards, curls his fingers just that much more and strokes right along that sweet spot, and Sherlock is arching his back and clutching at John's hair and crying out.

"God!"

John lets out a little satisfied hum that vibrates through Sherlock's cock and makes him jerk. Oh, God, he wants that again—and John is so good,  _ so good, _ that he knows, and he delivers, again and again and again.

Sherlock is panting, breathless exaltations falling from his lips as he rides out John's unrelenting assault. John drags his mouth up Sherlock's cock and wraps his lips around the head, and Sherlock nearly sobs.

"Oh, please," he begs. "Please, I'm sure it's fine, just do it."

John lifts his head, and the sight nearly kills Sherlock dead on the spot. His hair is mussed from Sherlock's desperate groping, his lips are damp and red, his cheeks are flushed pink, and his pupils are wide and dark. He looks unmistakably, undeniably debauched.

"I want to, Sherlock," he says, "God, yeah, I wanna right now."

"Then do it," Sherlock grits out.

"Just a little while longer."

And just like that, he's bending back to his task.

Sherlock despairs, he pleads, he groans, but John is ceaseless. And now he's avoiding Sherlock's prostate and has gone to planting wet kisses up and down Sherlock's prick, which is all so good and the best Sherlock's ever felt and  _ not nearly enough. _

Sherlock twists on the bed, one hand in John's hair and one hand in his own, clutching for stability. How is John surviving this? Sherlock can't even breathe, and he's come once already. He cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of his friend, and the sight goes straight to his core like he's grabbed hold of a live wire.

John's free hand is splayed out beside him and face is slightly upturned, his eyes shut as if in bliss. His little pink mouth stretches wide as he pulls it over the sensitive skin of Sherlock's shaft.

He looks as if he's receiving a sacrament. He looks grateful, because of Sherlock, because of how Sherlock makes him feel. Sherlock did this to him.

There's a rush of sensation to Sherlock's cock, and he urgently tugs at John's hair and curls one leg around his shoulders.

"Stop, stop, I'm going to—"

John pulls off just in time. Sherlock is caught between the desire to demand he keep going and the knowledge that if they didn't stop, he would come  _ again _ .

He lets his arms flop to the mattress, closes his eyes, and gulps in breaths. His heart is beating dangerously fast and he suspects he might be lightheaded. Perhaps that's just John.

Beside him, he hears John fiddling with something. The...supplies, probably. The thought provokes a tiny tendril of anxiety. But they've come this far, haven't they? And John is so good. Sherlock might, just might, be able to trust him with this.

"How you feeling?" John asks.

Sherlock is gratified at how rough John's voice sounds. He did that. He made John feel that way.

Sherlock opens his eyes and keeps them firmly fixed on the ceiling. "I'm...sort of out of breath."

John chuckles. "Yeah, me too." He settles on hand on Sherlock's knee. Sherlock's breath catches. "You do that to me sometimes."

Sherlock is frozen by a painful throb of desire. He closes his eyes to ride it out.

John runs his hand up Sherlock's leg and over his hip, laying it flat over his stomach. "I just...can't believe you. So beautiful, so...responsive." Being nearby it, John kisses the inside of Sherlock's knee. Sherlock shivers.

"I think," he says hesitantly, "that I might be ready now. Are—are you…?"

John laughs again. "Jesus, sweetheart, I've been ready for a while."

Sherlock's prick throbs.

"I'll go slow. Tell me if it's too much."

"Yes."

There's some minor rearranging of bodies, John pressing Sherlock's legs further apart, and it becomes clear why the pillows were a wise addition. Raised as they are, Sherlock's bum lines up excellently with John's cock.

John's cock, which is hard and flushed. He rolled on a condom while Sherlock was catching his breath.

Something about the sight and the position conspire together to needle Sherlock with the tiniest prickle of anxiety. They're really doing this. He, and John. They're having sex. John is going to fuck him.

"John," Sherlock says, hating how his voice comes out small and choked.

John smiles, reaches down, and cups Sherlock's cheek. "Hey," he says softly. "You're fine. We're fine. You still want this?"

Sherlock considers frankly. He's nervous, but he's used to that, isn't he? And it's like he's said to John—caution gets you nowhere. Find the edge by falling off it.

"I want it," he whispers. "I want you."

John's face relaxes. "Fuck, yes. Want you too. Okay, I'm going slow."

He crowds in closer and Sherlock breathes in, in, in, until his chest can't expand any further. There it is, the blunt pressure against, and pushing, and in _. _

"Oh," Sherlock says, sounding strangled.

"That's the tip," John says breathlessly. "I—I'm going to keep going."

"Yes. Yes."

He does, driving ever onwards, pressing the breath from Sherlock's lungs bit by bit until he's empty and he has to gasp in another breath.

"Oh fuck, Sherlock," John moans. He's already beading with sweat along his brow.

Sherlock feels full, so much more so than he did with John's fingers. He feels as if every available bit of space inside of Sherlock Holmes is being occupied by John Watson. He doesn't know how he'll ever take it when John starts moving, and then John says, "That's nearly all of it."

There's  _ more? _ Sherlock whimpers.

"You want it?"

Sherlock doesn't even think this time, just says, "Yes, yes, I want it, I want all of you."

And John  _ keeps going, _ going so deep, falling forward onto his arms so he's nearly face to face with Sherlock. Sherlock keeps himself absolutely, entirely still. He's a little afraid of what would happen if he moved.

Just when he's about to cry out for John to stop, he feels John's hips come flush with his.

That's it. That's all of him. They're connected.

Sherlock trembles underneath of John, trying to adjust to the feeling of  _ obliterated _ and  _ full.  _ John is combing through his hair and murmuring gentle endearments in Sherlock's ear. He can't follow the words exactly, but the tone comes through.

He processes John saying, "Gonna move, okay?" just in time to prepare himself.

John pulls back, and it feels like Sherlock is going down a drain. He wants to clutch and demand that John stay, stay right where he was forever, and then John pushes back in and Sherlock groans.

"That do it for you?" John asks smugly.

"Mm."

He does it again, and again, a slow, circular movement that has Sherlock clutching John's shoulders and wrapping his leg around John's thighs just so he has something to hold on to. The strange, intrusive feeling starts to give way to a steady heat that Sherlock finds he wants more of, and now.

He cautiously unwinds his leg from around John's so that he can plant his feet on the bed. It isn't something he does consciously, but rather a sort of instinct, the inspiration that if he does this, he can feel more. He uses his newfound leverage to rock his hips slightly.

"You like that," says John, awed. "You love it. Love my cock."

Sherlock moans. He does, doesn't he? He absolutely loves taking John's cock. Wants to take it harder, and faster, and for as long as he can, until John is coming undone.

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

"John…"

"You want it hard?"

Sherlock gasps as one slow stroke inwards makes his insides swell. "John!"

"Say it. Say you want me to fuck you."

Sherlock arches his back, which does a pretty job of pressing his arse down onto John's cock and his body and prick against John's front. John curses.

"Fuck! Not gonna be that easy, baby."

"For God's sake!" Sherlock bursts out. "Do it!"

"Oh, fuck yeah," John groans.

He leans up onto his knees and picks up the speed. Oh, that is sweet. Sherlock squirms and pants.

"God, you're good," John sighs.

He's taken up a moderate pace, somewhere around an adagio, just quick enough to drive sensation up from Sherlock's groin, spiraling through his body and into his head. It's the perfect pace to drive Sherlock very nearly, but not all the way, out of his mind. Insistent, not urgent.

They lose their words for a while, each of them separately savoring the rising heat and unmistakable smell of sex and the truly fantastic pleasure gripping them. John pushes Sherlock's legs up, which lets him thrust in deeper, making them both groan.

It's no less all-consuming than before, but somehow Sherlock feels less as if he will perish of it. This, right here, must be the reason why people want to make sex last. He'd never understood it before. His primary goal when pleasuring himself had always been to get it over and done with. But this is something altogether different. It is good to coast here, to float along the tide and savor the sensation.

Sherlock lets his hand drift onto his stomach. He trails it up over his ribcage and sternum to the base of his throat. He isn't trying to do anything in particular, just enjoying the sensation in concert with everything else his body is giving him. Every inch of exposed skin is crackling, and he wants to feel as much as he can.

"Jesus that's fucking sexy. Do you do that when you touch yourself?"

"Yes," Sherlock pants.

"Show me what you do," John says.

Sherlock lolls his head from side to side. "Can't. Too close."

"Fuck, already?" John grits his teeth and slows for a moment—Sherlock makes an outraged noise—then resumes his previous pace. "Sorry. Got—distracted."

Almost came, then. Sherlock rolls his hips up into John's with a bit more vigor, which has the pleasing effect of making John's eyes roll back. He knows what he can give John, so he gives it—hand drifting from his neck down to his chest, his index and middle fingers catching around the pink point of his nipple. He shivers.

"Oh," John says, in an abruptly different sort of voice.

Sherlock doesn't pinch. He merely holds the nipple between his two fingers and gently circles them, tugging lightly. John was right. This is exactly how Sherlock likes to get himself going, on the rare occasion that he indulges.

"Fuck, that's hot," John breathes. "Keep going."

Sherlock keeps going, tugging a little harder and more rhythmically.

"Oh fuck," John hisses.

To Sherlock's delight, John's thrusts pick up the pace to match.

"Do you know what you look like?" he growls.

"No," Sherlock gasps.

"You look fucking...sexy. Jesus, didn't think I'd ever see you like this. Sherlock, you make me feel so fucking good. Am I—am I making you feel good?"

"Yes, John."

"You wanna come?"

"Yes, John!"

"Want me to make you come?"

"Yes!"

Teeth bared in a snarl, John takes Sherlock by the hips and sets a pace that makes Sherlock's jaw clench. Oh, there it is, the reason people die and kill for this. God, how can one person feel this much and  _ not _ die? Sherlock desperately keeps working his nipple.

His cock is still untouched, lying hot and dark on his stomach. Sherlock doesn't dare touch it now. He's fully invested in making this last now. Nevertheless, he gives his nipple a punishing tug, just as John slams home. Sherlock writhes and cries out.

"Jesus!"

Sherlock tries to say something, but it comes out a jumble of "John" and "more" and "please" and some other noises as well, but it gets the point across. John grunts and fucks him all the faster as Sherlock works his nipple in insistent circles.

Sherlock is climbing ever higher, running out of oxygen and scrambling for footing, lost to John's unremitting pace. He hooks his free hand under one leg and pulls it even further back, just to see if John can get even deeper, and he does. Sherlock jerks and groans, and he would very much like to grab his cock and give himself up to oblivion, but now he's out of hands, and what, precisely, is he supposed to do?

But then John cries out in a quavering voice, "Oh, Sherlock," in a way that makes something plummet in Sherlock's guts, until the full suite of sensations is coalescing. He clenches around John's cock and gives his nipple a final firm jerk, and realizes he's coming.

It's different than it has been before. There's still the quick, sharp pleasure from his cock as it pulses hot semen across his stomach. But there's also the tingling of his hand at his chest, and the deeper pleasure of the way his body is rhythmically contracting around John's cock. Sherlock's whole body shakes, and he would slap a hand over his mouth to smother his sounds if he had a hand to spare. He doesn't, so he just sobs his pleasure towards the headboard as John keeps up his punishing pace and then thrusts in hard and stays while he shouts, "Sherlock, Sherlock, love you, love you, Sherlock."

John doesn't move at first. He just slumps forward, takes Sherlock's head in his hands, and kisses him. Sherlock is content to kiss him. He catches snippets of breaths around John's mouth, allowing John to lazily take what Sherlock wants to give.

Eventually, John pulls out—Sherlock groans—and flops onto the bed beside him.

"Fuck," he says. "Oh, wait, hang on."

He rolls out of bed, stumbles a little, and goes into the bathroom. Sherlock closes his eyes and basks in the contented glow.

"Hang on. I'm going to clean you up."

Sherlock grumbles while John fusses about, cleaning him up.

"Come back," he complains.

"Hang on! You'll thank me later."

Finally, John finishes up and climbs back into bed. Sherlock cannot possibly be expected to turn over onto his side, but he can go as far as turning his head.

"You've done that before," Sherlock says.

John smiles. "Ah, yeah."

"But you've never had a long-term relationship."

"No. But I didn't live too far from Philadelphia, and there's a good gay scene there. It's not hard to find someone for something casual."

"No, I imagine you'd have no problem pulling."

John's smile spreads into a grin. "Are you calling me attractive?"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "After what we just did, one would naturally assume—"

"Shh," John says, then scoots forward enough to kiss him.

The kissing is good like this, both of them relaxed and easy and comfortable. Sherlock sighs.

"Did you mean it?" he asks, when they break apart.

"Mean what, sweetheart?"

Oh, the pet names. Sherlock should find them ridiculous, but instead he just melts. "What you...said. Towards the end."

"What? Oh!" John's cheeks color a little. "Yeah. I did. I know it's fast, but there wasn't really any getting around it. And it just sort of came out."

"Well. I believe I do as well."

"What?"

"What you said. I…" Sherlock looks away. "I love you."

John doesn't say anything. The silence stretches out long enough that Sherlock starts to panic, but when he looks, John is smiling.

"How lucky I am," he says softly. "How lucky we both are."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] Passion Connected](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15359217) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)




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